


Sing the Body Electric

by georgygirl



Series: Across the Universe [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Arguing, Bickering, Canon-Typical Violence, Childbirth, Crack Treated Seriously, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic Avengers, Drama, Dubious Consent, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Female Tony Stark, Forced Pregnancy, Gender Issues, Genderbending, Jealous Tony Stark, M/M, Marriage, Parent Steve Rogers, Parent Tony Stark, Parenthood, Possessive Steve Rogers, Pregnancy, Protective Steve Rogers, Rape/Non-con Elements, Romance, Some Humor, Soul Bond, Soulmates, Team as Family, Temporary mpreg, Tony-centric, Wedding Fluff, Weddings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-08-23
Packaged: 2020-02-10 02:57:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 306,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18651496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgygirl/pseuds/georgygirl
Summary: When a well-meaning nutcase from the cosmos determines that Steve and Tony have one of the strongest soul bonds she's ever sensed, she takes it into her own hands to ensure that Steve and Tony are able to have what she believes every soul-bonded couple wishes -- and is made -- for.Too bad she doesn't tell Steve and Tony about this before she weaves her little magic spell. Now, Steve and Tony are forced to come to terms with the fact that the week Tony spent as a woman was not as harmless an exercise as they'd originally thought.And there's no easy way to fix it.*REPOST*





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost of a work that I originally put up in...*checks notes*...2016.
> 
> This is based on a file conversion from the original post (stupidly, I never had a master copy of this story.), so be aware that there are some formatting issues here and there. I've tried to fix the most glaring, but I'm sure a few snuck through here and there.
> 
> Also, the story is complete. I'll be updating it as I get the chapters reformatted, so it should hopefully only take a couple weeks at most to get it all posted again.
> 
> There are some elements of this story that may be a little trigger-y depending, and I've tagged everything I *think* would apply. I've tagged 'temporary mpreg' rather than 'mpreg' because even though the story starts out with Tony pregnant, it's really due to hand-wavy magic stuff. He's Tony as we know him when the story starts, but he was a woman when he initially got pregnant, and, as you'll see, he does not remain in a male body for much longer.
> 
> 'Explicit Sexual Content' means exactly that. There is sex in this story. Not very well-written sex, but sex. Anal, oral, and vaginal. And masturbation. Also pregnant sex. It may even dip into a sort of kink on the parts of both Tony and Steve.
> 
> 'Dom/sub Undertones' is just that. It's not explicit by any means (not that I'm aware of, anyway); more of an element of Dom!Steve/sub!Tony if you squint at it the right way.
> 
> 'Rape/Non-con Elements'/'Dubious Consent' is tagged because, honestly, you could read it in that way on the part of Tony. What happens to him -- or I should say what he's forced to do -- is borderline. However, the sex between Steve and Tony is 100% consensual and very much desired. The pregnancy gets into those other elements, but the sex itself is totally kosher on their parts.
> 
> Oh, yes, and Author is Not a Doctor. I mean, granted, this is a story about a man magically being turned into a woman and being impregnated by another man that was frozen in a glacier for almost seventy years, but still. Author has done research, but author is not a doctor. Or a lawyer. Author did stay at a Holiday Inn once.
> 
> Enjoy!

* * *

"Look, just a quick checkup."

Bruce sighed like Tony was asking him to commit highway robbery. "Tony, I'm not that kind of doctor. How many times have I told you that?"

"Whatever. Look, I don't actually need one of those doctors. You've read our files. You know us better than any of those other quacks in the outside world would. I just need you to do a quick workup for me."

"Why?"

Tony grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. "Look, it's probably just that I'm getting older and things aren't running the way they used to or something. But Steve's even noticed that I'm not at my usual five hundred percent, and I'd kind of like to get a clean bill of health to shove in his face before he gets back."

"Then go to an actual doctor," Bruce said and pushed past him as he made his way over to one of his computer models. "I'm not a general practitioner. I wouldn't even know what to look for."

"Yeah, but you've read my file," Tony said and went around him, blocking Bruce's view of his screen. "You'd know what would stick out better than those quacks would. Maybe it's late-effect palladium poisoning. Maybe it's residual effects from the arc reactor. Maybe I just ate a bad cheeseburger. I don't know. I just know that if I don't get cleared by someone with a doctorate, Steve's going to be on my ass until I do — and I don't mean in the good way that makes you guys wish I'd put in better soundproofing."

Bruce grimaced. "Not a visual I needed. Thanks, Tony."

"You haven't walked in on us," he replied with a wicked grin. "Barton, the son-of-a-bitch, walked in. Deserved whatever nightmares he got from it, too."

"I don't think you have the high ground on that one, Tony," Bruce said and reached around Tony to swipe at things on the screen. "Didn't that happen in a SHIELD conference room?"

"The door was clearly closed. It was an invasion of privacy."

"It wasn't locked, it was the middle of the day, and wasn't that around the time of that whole thing with the Mandarin?"

 _"Bruce,"_ Tony whined, completely sidestepping Bruce's last comments. "Come on, just a quick checkup. Turn your head and cough. Let me check your reflexes. Bend over so I can check your prostate. You know, the usual."

"I'm sure the Cap would be more inclined to notice something wrong with your prostate than I would."

Tony grinned at him, and Bruce grimaced and groaned once he realized what he'd said. "Tony, no, I'm not giving you a checkup," he said, purposely trying to work past the awkwardness of his insinuation.

"How can I make it worth your while to do so?"

Bruce laughed then said, "Give me twenty-four hours of peace."

Tony nodded. "Can do. My super soldier fiancé is due back sometime tomorrow, and as much fun as it is sciencing with you, Brucie, it's a lot more fun having 'me' time with my gorgeous super stud."

Bruce looked like he'd rather discuss anything but that. "Yeah, I'm…happy for you, Tony."

"Good," Tony said and clapped his hands together. "Then it's settled." He motioned to a cot in the corner. "There, or—?"

Bruce sighed and set the tablet he'd been holding down on a work table. "No, let's go down to medical. Might as well try to make this somewhat legit."

~*~

Tony had insisted that it wasn't a real checkup unless he was covered only by a thin paper smock, but Bruce said there was no reason for him to get undressed and he could do whatever examinations and run whatever tests he needed while Tony was fully clothed.

So, Tony lay back on the table, the hard vinyl not exactly the most comfortable thing around, and he wiggled around on it as Bruce took his pulse and listened to his heartbeat and made him sit up so he could look in his ears.

"Look, I know the general 'what' of this, but I don't know—"

"Don't care. Just need to shut Steve up."

Bruce frowned and began to press his fingers into Tony's abdomen. "I'm thinking it could be appendicitis," he said and pressed a little harder. Tony winced a little, but only because of how odd it felt and not because it actually hurt. Bruce read it wrong, however, and he pulled his hands back and said, "Did that hurt?"

"No," Tony said. "Just felt funny."

Bruce nodded and went back to pressing into Tony's abdomen, his brow furrowing in more and more confusion as he went.

"What?" Tony asked, not liking the look.

"I don't know," Bruce said. "Based on what I know of anatomy…something doesn't feel right."

"Oh, god," Tony said and sat up some. "Fuck, it's a tumor. It's a tumor, isn't it?"

Bruce just put a hand to Tony's shoulder and pushed him back down. "I don't know. I don't think so, but…"

"But it could be."

"I don't know what it could be. Not unless I get a better look."

"And how would you do that?

Bruce shrugged. "Could run an ultrasound." Tony made a face. "Will it hurt?"

"It'll be annoying."

Tony made an utterance of disgust. "Whatever. Just do it. I just need to shut Steve up."

Bruce eyeballed him. "And what if it turns out it's something more than that?"

He thought about this a moment then said, "We cross that bridge when we get to it."

Bruce's shoulders slumped a bit like that was the answer he hadn't been hoping for, and he said, "I don't actually have one, Tony. I'd have to call in a favor to get one here."

"Then do it."

" _Or_ , and I could be talking crazy here, but you could go to a real doctor."

Tony just blinked. "But you _are_ a real doctor."

"A medical doctor, Tony!" he cried. "I'm out of my depth here. I don't know what's wrong with you."

Tony rolled his eyes and slumped into the bed. "That's the whole point of the checkup here, Brucie. To find out what's wrong with me. Why do you have to be so difficult?"

Bruce just raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you like this with Cap?"

"Like what?"

"Like a whiny, annoying, pain-in-the-ass."

He faked a gasp. "That's hurtful, big green. For the record, I am ridiculously delightful, and Steve worships the very ground I walk on."

Bruce just rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. "Tony," he murmured, and Tony sat back up again.

"Bruce, come on! You know deep down you're secretly dying to find out what's there. You're a science man. You like to dig deeper, find stuff out, figure out fixes to problems. Getting to the root of something intrigues you. Science, Bruce. Do it for science!"

Bruce just looked at him, sighing, like he'd already resigned himself to his fate. "Let me go make a call," he said, and Tony grinned and said, "Yay!" like he was an over-excited child.

They couldn't get the machine until the next day, which did nothing for Tony's nerves — or Bruce's, for that matter — and when it was finally delivered, Tony ripped off the tape and protective bubble wrap it had been sent over in like a child opening presents on Christmas.

And speaking of Christmas, they were halfway through January already. Wasn't it time for Romanoff and Barton to pull the decorations down already? It didn't matter how festive Thor thought they were. Who wasn't even there and hadn't been since New Year's, anyway.

"All right, Tony," Bruce said, the unit already set up as he wheeled it over to the bed in the medical lab. "Let's get this over with."

"'bout damned time," he muttered and hopped onto the table. "Uh, you know how to read one of those things, don't you?"

Bruce couldn't help but look amused. " _Now_ you ask that question?"

"Didn't seem important at the time," he said with a shrug just as Barton and Romanoff made their way into the lab, both looking bored and in need of something to entertain them.

"Hey, what's that?" Barton asked as they made their way over to the bed, Bruce and the unit on one side while Barton and Romanoff took standing positions on the other.

"It's a 1952 RCA TK-11," Tony said, impatient and ready to just get this over and done with. "What do you think it is?"

Barton made a face. "I don't even know what _that_ is."

"It's a GE ultrasound machine," Bruce said, earning a dismissive scoff of, " _GE_ ," from Tony. He shot a look at Tony and said, "I had a contact with a GE. Does SI even make ultrasound machines?"

"That's something I should probably know," Tony said, which earned him rolled eyes from Bruce and a pat on the arm from Romanoff.

"What's with the machine though?" she asked. She didn't sound concerned, just curious, but Tony swore he felt some sort of heightened unease vibrating from her. Romanoff liked to play like she didn't care, but she did, and the people she cared for she'd do anything for.

Bruce grabbed a tube of silicone gel and turned to Tony. "Uh, Tony, you're going to have to pull your pants down a little bit."

"All right," he said and shimmied them down some. "But just remember, no matter what you see, I am spoken for and by a very possessive super soldier at that. He doesn't share."

"Yeah, thanks, Stark," Barton said and shared a look with Romanoff. "I think we'll be able to contain ourselves. And hey, Doc, you still didn't answer Nat's question."

Bruce shared a look with Tony before he squirted some of the cold gel onto Tony's abdomen, and Tony's abdominals twitched at the cool sensation on his skin. "Tony says he hasn't been feeling well, so he requested I—"

"I feel like shit, Steve's due home any time now, I need to prove I'm fine otherwise he's going to be on my ass to go to a doctor — and like I already told Brucie, not the good kind of being on my ass — so I'm making Brucie go through and give me a checkup. He thought he felt something funny in my abdomen. It's probably a tumor. I need to find out what it is before Steve gets home so I can make sure he never finds out about it."

The others were silent a moment before Barton said, "Ah, lies and secrecy. Always the foundation for a good relationship."

Romanoff shrugged. "It's been working well for them so far."

"All right, Tony," Bruce said as he poised the wand above Tony's abdomen. "This is probably going to feel a little funny. Try not to move too much."

"What Cap tells Stark every night," Barton said, and Tony rolled his eyes and decided not to dignify such a stupid comment with a response.

Bruce pressed down onto his abdomen with the wand, and yeah, it did feel a little funny, especially as he moved it around, his concentration — and confusion, if he was being honest — splayed over his face. He went about this for several minutes before he began to look from the screen down to Tony's abdomen and back to the screen again.

"This is why I said you need to go to an actual medical doctor, Tony," he finally said, frustration rampant in his tone.

"What? Why?" He sat up again. "Oh, god, it really is a tumor, isn't it? Gun to my head, I didn't actually mean it before. I was kind of just saying it to be an ass. I didn't really think it was a tumor. But, oh, god, it's really a tumor, isn't it?" He pointed at Barton and Romanoff. "Breathe one word of this to Steve, and you're cut off."

"It's…it's not a tumor," Bruce said, some weird hitch in his voice.

" _Kindergarten Cop_ ," Barton said then glanced around. "Oh, right. Cap's not here."

Bruce shot him a look. "I'm not making thirty-year-old pop culture references, either."

"Twenty-five,"  Barton said.  "Don't exaggerate."

"It's… It's not a _tumor_ , Tony. It's…" He shook his head. "Go to a doctor. Go to a real medical doctor, Tony."

"Why?"

"Because what I _think_ it is can't be what it is."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not humanly possible, Tony."

Tony sat up some again and focused in on the monitor. He squinted his eyes and tilted his head, but it was Barton that said, "Holy fuck," like he recognized what was on the screen.

"What?" Romanoff said and looked from the screen to Barton, but Barton just looked at Bruce and said, " _How_?"

Bruce hit a few buttons on the set and said, "That's why I said he should go to a real doctor, but if you think you're seeing what I think I'm seeing..." He shook his head. "It's not possible. It's just not possible."

" _What?"_ Tony practically cried. "What isn't possible?"

Romanoff was as lost as he was, but Barton just walked around to the head of the bed and braced himself over Tony like he was trying to match his line of sight to Tony's. "Stark, you and Cap… you, uh, you experimented back when you got turned into a woman a couple months ago, didn't you?"

Bruce seemed surprised. "You think that's what it is?"

"Could it have happened any other way?"

"What are you implying?" Tony asked, though a small, fearful part of him already knew the absolutely impossible answer.

"Well," Barton said, "see, Stark, when a super soldier and a billionaire love each other very much—"

Romanoff muttered something in Russian before she turned on both Bruce and Barton in surprise.

"There it is," Barton said and motioned to her. "That just leaves our little mother-to-be out in the dark." He frowned. "Wait, is 'mother' the right term?"

" _Mother?_ " Tony repeated like he didn't quite understand what that asshole Barton was implying. Until he did.

" _Bruce_?" Tony said in slight alarm and looked to him for clarification. Or to quell the oncoming panic attack. One or the other. Because if Barton was implying what he thought he was implying… "I'm starting to get a picture here, and I'm not liking what I'm seeing."

Bruce just looked at what was on the screen. "Yeah, well, if it's what I'm seeing and what Barton's seeing—"

"How would Barton even know?" he snapped and shook his head. "Jesus Christ," he muttered. "This can't be happening to me. You must be reading it wrong."

"I might be, Tony. That's why I said go to an actual medical professional that does this on a regular—"

"I know what you said, Bruce! Jesus Christ, is that—" He looked at the monitor, and he squinted his eyes, and if he…if he looked at it the right way, if he purposely looked for what he thought he was seeing…

"Please tell me that's not a fetus, Bruce."

Bruce just shook his head sadly. "I can't do that, Tony. It's… It's a baby, Tony. A fetus."

"You and Cap just had to try it out the old-fashioned way, didn't you?" Barton said with a pat to his shoulder, and Tony glared at him a moment before he turned back to Bruce.

"Do it again."

"What? Run the wand over your abdomen again? You think it's a false reading?"

"Maybe that's a cached image. Maybe that's from someone else. Clear it out and—"

"It _was_ clear, Tony! This is you! This is—" Bruce motioned at the monitor. "Absolutely impossible."

Barton shrugged. "Not if they weren't careful."

" _What?_ " Tony snapped and glanced back at him.

Barton shrugged. "Maybe it's a remnant from when you were a woman. You got pregnant. When you got changed back...maybe not everything changed back, if you get my drift?"

Bruce rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. "I can't believe I'm asking this, but Tony, when you and Cap…did it…when you were a woman, did you…did you use any contraceptives?"

Romanoff and Barton both turned to him, and he felt his face flush a little with embarrassment — evidently _some_ part of him knew to be embarrassed by that fact — before he said, "It might have gotten overlooked."

"Tony!"

"What? We don't usually employ it, no. You know why? Because we're two adult _men_ in a monogamous relationship. The only reason we'd use it is to keep down the mess and…if you must know, sometimes that comes into play, no pun intended."

"More than I ever wanted to know about what goes on behind the bedroom door of our esteemed leaders," Barton muttered while Romanoff nodded her agreement.

Tony reached up and rubbed a hand over his face. "This isn't happening. This can't be happening." He dropped his hand back down to the bed and glared at each face hovering above him. "I think we can all agree, upon pain of death, _no one_ tells Steve about this."

Romanoff set an icy glare upon him. "Is it not Steve's?" she asked, folding her arms.

"Of course it's Steve's!" he cried out. "But it's just…" He turned to Bruce. "You've gotta get it out of me."

Bruce raised an eyebrow. "How?"

"What do you mean 'how'? However they usually do it. Stick a coat hanger up there or something!"

"Yeah, exactly, Tony. How? Unless there's something you're not telling me about other anatomical bits that didn't quite disappear when you got changed back."

"A _vag_ , Stark," Barton said. "He's asking if you have a vag."

Tony shot a glare at him and said, "Thank you. I couldn't figure that out on my own."

Barton shrugged. "The hormones clouding up your system now, I wouldn't be a bit surprised."

He just shook off Barton's comments and turned back to Bruce. "No. There's nothing…"

He stopped short and frowned as he thought about this.

"Wait, there's no natural way to… You'd have to hack me open just to rip out…"

He collapsed back on the bed and groaned, pressing the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. "I fucking hate magic," he grumbled.

"Look, Tony," Bruce said, and Tony pulled his hands away from his eyes at the note of unease and hesitance he heard in Bruce's voice.

"What? What, Doc? Give it to me straight."

Bruce sighed and fiddled a bit with the equipment. "I'm not sure that allowing…that…to continue unabated is in your best interests. The male body isn't designed to bear children, and with your heart—"

"Incidentally, another thing we do not tell Steve about. I mean, he knows, but let's not remind him."

"—and your slightly advanced age—"

"Forty-three, Brucie. I'm forty-three. I'm not dead."

"—and your history of palladium poisoning, it might put too much of a strain on your body. That said, there's no real…non-intrusive way  of—"

"Ripping out the female reproductive organs that somehow got left behind when I got changed back into a man because some space cadet thought it would be funny to Rule 63 someone on the team and she didn't care who."

Bruce grimaced a little but shrugged and indicated his agreement. "Pretty much."

"So, wait," Barton said and stepped closer to peer at the monitor. "Does that technically make Stark a hermaphrodite?"

Tony pointed to the far wall. "Door is that way, Barton. See yourself out. I'd say don't let it hit you in the ass, but JARVIS will make certain to beat you with it several times before you're able to escape."

Barton swatted at him, but Romanoff said, "Tempting as it is to make jokes about this—" She put gentle hands on Tony's arm then looked to Bruce. "How serious are we talking?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I'm out of my depth here, which is why I think Tony should go to an actual  medical doctor—"

"With this? I'm going to go to an actual, normal, everyday medical doctor like this? How am I supposed to explain this?"

"Might be some ex-SHIELD medical staff bumbling around here somewhere," Barton suggested.

"Yeah, we're keeping this off the secret-spy-agency-formerly-known-as-SHIELD's radar as much as possible."

Bruce just rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses again and said with a bit of a sigh, "Tony, I'm not that kind of doctor."

"Yeah, you keep saying that but, uh, weren't you doing philanthropic medical work in Calcutta when Romanoff here dragged you into our little freak show?" Tony asked, but Bruce leveled him with a flat look.

"All right," he conceded, "an ob/gyn then. You know, someone that would actually have experience in this sort of thing? I'm not _that_ kind of doctor."

" _This_ sort of thing? Yeah? What exactly _is_ that, bugaboo?" He sat up some, bracing his weight on his elbows. "I am a forty-three-year-old male with a uterus that is currently being inhabited by the spawn of a super-soldier everyone thought died in 1945. For _this?_ Yeah, you're that kind of doctor."

"Could not pay me enough to trade places with you," Barton said with a laugh, and Romanoff smacked him. "Ow! Nat! Quit it!"

She rolled her eyes at him then turned her attention to Tony. "Stark? Stark, look at me. Stark, breathe with me."

It wasn't until he met her clear green eyes that he realized he'd been getting a little worked up, and he put his hand atop the one she'd placed over his chest where the arc reactor had once sat and tried to breathe with her. In. Out. In. And out again. His pulse was racing, and he knew his blood pressure was elevated, and he gasped out a few breaths and closed his eyes. He was reminded of how similar the reaction to this was to the panic attacks and the nightmares he'd had about the portal after the Battle of New York, but he pushed those thoughts aside as best as he could and just concentrated on the horribleness of the here and now.

"Tony? Tony, it's OK," Romanoff said, her voice oddly soothing, even if it was a little jarring to hear her use his first name. "We're here for you. We're not going to abandon you. And Clint's not going to make any more jokes about this."

"Well, I can promise to try."

"Open your eyes and look at me, Tony."

He did so, only then realizing how tightly he was squeezing her hand. He didn't let go of it; he just acknowledged that he was squeezing it hard enough to crack the bones.

"When Steve gets back, you're going to tell him, and you two are going to figure out how you're going to go about this, understand?" She shot a look at Bruce. "Though if you scare him as much as you've scared Tony, I think I can guess what he'll say."

She met his eyes again and smiled at him, and he nodded his understanding of her words and slowly, ever-so-slowly, let go of the hand he clutched like a lifeline.

"Yeah, and if I know the Cap like I think I know him, he's going to blame himself for this," Barton said.

"Of course he will," Romanoff — Natasha — replied. "Steve's a martyr with a hero complex and an ego the size of Texas. Of course he'll lay all the blame on himself." She tweaked a smile and ran light fingers through Tony's hair, brushing it away from his forehead. "Tony can do no wrong," she mused.

"Hey, if I let the Cap fuck me, you think he'd let me get away with whatever I wanted, too?"

As Bruce muttered something about that not being a visual he needed, Natasha smiled down at Tony and said, "Oh, I think there's more to it than that." She reached down and grabbed hold of his arm to pull him upright. "Come on, Shellhead. I'll whip you up a nice cup of chamomile and then you can go sleep it off for a little while."

"You know, I'm a grown man. I can totally take care of myself," he said but didn't pull his arm away and instead let Natasha lead him away from the bed and over to the door.

"I know you can," she humored. "Now, come on. All that stress isn't good for the ba— _ody._ Body."

"Nice save."

"I try."

~*~

The chamomile did help, even if he was never really one for tea, and even if the Spy Twins intercepted him every time he so much as thought about getting to the coffeemaker. But it did help soothe his nerves just the slightest, and after getting worked up down in the lab over…his test results, which Bruce made worse by insisting on blood and urine to analyze as well…it made it easier to hunker down on the couch and slip off into dreamland, his head pillowed on Natasha's thigh as she ran calming fingers through his hair.

The next thing he knew, it was dusk, and the size and firmness of the thigh he had pillowed his head against had changed, and squinting through tired eyes, he looked up to see a familiar super soldier sitting there, jaw set and eyes hard as read over what was displayed on the tablet he had balanced on the arm of the couch. He must have felt Tony stirring, as he tore his attention away from the tablet and, like the flip of a light switch, the hardness vanished, leaving nothing but a soft tenderness as he looked down at Tony and said, "Hey there, sleepyhead."

Tony sat up some, stretching out his sore muscles. "When did you get back?"

"A little while ago," he replied, unable to hide the slight strain in his voice or, now that Tony looked a little closer, the concern in his eyes. His heart sunk a little.

"They told you, didn't they?"

Steve froze a moment as though caught in the headlamps before he let out a hefty sigh and said, "Yeah," nodding to firm up his case.

"Oh," Tony said and pulled away from him, trying to distance himself. If Steve caught on to what he was doing, he gave no indication of it. "Yeah, well, look—"

"I'm so sorry, Tony," Steve said, sounding absolutely wrecked. "I'm so sorry. I should have— I was selfish, and I wasn't thinking, and I shouldn't have—"

Tony put his hands up. "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Hold up there, slick! What are you apologizing for? As I recall, there were two of us there, and I remember not just being an active participant in the shenanigans but actually encouraging it."

Steve's face folded into a despondent frown. "Yeah, I know, but I should have—"

"Oh, no!" Tony said and pointed a finger at him. "Don't you do this. Don't you take this all on yourself. I was in on that just as much as you were."

The worry and concern still hadn't left Steve's face. "Yeah, I know," he said and reached a tentative hand out toward Tony's abdomen but stopped short of actually touching him. "But I'm not the one that ended up…"

"Look, if I in any way thought that this could happen, I would have insisted on so many layers of protection that it would be like we weren't even doing anything at all. I thought if anything I would just get changed back and that would be all there was to it. I didn't think… I didn't think it would carry over."

Steve just continued to hold his hand out, hovering over Tony's abdomen like he was trying to work up the courage to actually make the contact or shame himself over what he'd done. "Bruce said it isn't safe," he murmured.

"Yeah? As Bruce keeps telling me, he isn't that kind of doctor, so he doesn't know what he's talking about."

"I think in this case, Tony—"

"Yeah? Well, what are we supposed to do about it, Steve? There's no way to— There's no easy access, which doesn't make any sense, or I guess it does because why would there be easy access? Why didn't this whole thing just go away when I changed back? How in the ever-loving fuck is this my life?"

Steve heaved out a heavy sigh, his hand now dropped away from Tony's abdomen. "I don't know, Tony. I don't— If I could take it on me, if I could do it instead of you, I would in a heartbeat."

Tony sniffed a little. "Don't know that pregnancy would be a good look on you—"

"It's not about a look, Tony—"

"I know what it's about, Steve, and you don't always have to play knight in red-white-and-blue armor."

"Tony, I did this to you!"

"We did it together. Look, there's no blame to be laid here except at the feet of that goddamned nutcase."

Steve shook his head. "Yeah, but I shouldn't have taken advantage of—"

Tony groaned. "Babe, believe me, you didn't take advantage of me. I wanted it just as much as you. Clearly we were idiots about the whole thing, but we've been known not to be able to think straight around each other from time to time — no pun intended. It is what it is, and we can't go back and change time, as far as I know, so we have to figure out some way of dealing with this."

Steve raised an eyebrow at him. "You're handling this quite well."

Tony shrugged. "It hasn't really hit me yet. I don't feel all that different, so any discomfort I can chalk up to the flu or a stomach bug."

Steve just let out an annoyed exhale and shook his head somewhat. "You shouldn't even have to go through this—"

Tony reached out and slapped a hand over his mouth. "Steve, stop it. I get that you feel guilty, and I understand that you're sorry, and I appreciate that you'd take this burden on yourself if you could, but you moaning about this isn't helping any. And I know I'm calm now, but that's because Nat makes killer cup of chamomile, and trust me, when the reality of this finally hits me, all the chamomile in the world isn't going to keep me from going insane."

He dropped his hand, and Steve stayed quiet a moment before he smiled a little and said, "Nat?"

"What?"

"Last I knew she was either 'Romanoff' or 'Scary Spice.'" Tony shrugged but didn't say anything.

Steve sat up some and set the tablet on the coffee table. "All right," he said, the tone pure authoritative Captain America, "then how do we handle this? It's not safe, we've established that, but it's not easy to remedy, either."

Tony sat back in surprise. "Is Captain America pro-choice?"

Steve leveled him with a flat look. "Captain America keeps his nose out of it. Steve Rogers wants whatever his partner wants because he's not the one that's actually going through it."

"So, it's my choice?"

"I will support you no matter what. No matter what you go with, it's not going to be easy, and I..."

He pursed his lips and clamped his mouth shut, and Tony watched as he swallowed like he was swallowing down his fears and apprehensions.

"I only want you to be safe."

Tony met his eye, and he smiled a little and said with only the smallest amount of emotion mucking up his voice, "Are you even real?"

"It's been suggested that my sentiments are a better fit for Hallmark cards."

Tony felt the dam breaking, and before he could help himself, he leaned forward and fell into Steve's arms, pressing his face into his shoulder and inhaling that safe, secure scent of soap and stubbornness that was Steve Rogers. Steve returned the embrace in kind, hugging fast to him, and turning his head to better be able to press a kiss to Tony's temple.

"I love you," Steve murmured, "and I will do whatever I can to do right by you."

"Does that mean you're going to marry me?" Tony asked, his voice muffled by Steve's shoulder.

"Don't you mean am I still going to marry you? I already asked, and you already said 'yes.' And does this mean you're actually going to try—"

"I don't know," Tony said and pulled back. "I don't know what it means. I just know that I don't even know where to begin with how to process this. This is not— Things like this don't normally happen to people. There are no self-help books or internet message boards for this sort of thing. There's no support group I can join. This is me, alone, with no easy way of getting around or out of this. This is— I don't know what to do, and I don't know—"

"Hey! Hey, Tony! Hey, look at me!"

Steve put his hands to either side of Tony's face and held him there, gently, stroking his thumbs against Tony's cheekbones like Tony was the most precious thing in the world to him.

"Breathe, honey. Look at me. Breathe. You're not alone. You have me, and you have the team. We're not going to let you fall or get hurt."

Tony took several breaths and closed his eyes, letting himself be soothed by the calming strokes of Steve's thumbs against his cheeks.

"This is scary. I get that. I'm not going to let you get hurt. We're going to figure it out. Whatever happens, we're going to figure it out, and it's going to be OK."

"I cannot be a parent, Steve," Tony finally said, his face still in Steve's gentle hold. "I can't— I can't do this."

Steve was quiet a moment, and Tony took it as Steve coming to terms with what Tony had just said, before he spoke in so low and calming and authoritative a voice that Tony had no choice but to believe every word he uttered.

"OK. Then we figure out a way to put this right."

Tony chanced opening his eyes to look at him. "You're not disappointed?"

"In a normal situation, I might be," he admitted, his steady gaze boring into Tony as a means of providing the stability and comfort Tony so desperately needed. "But this is far from a normal — let alone ideal — situation, and I don't want you putting yourself into anything that might be considered even remotely dangerous. We are also in a terribly risky occupation and should by no means be responsible for the welfare of a child. We're both orphans. We know what that's like. I don't care if we did miraculously create a life together. Avengers Tower is the last place on earth you should want to raise a child. Never mind the fact that Bruce said this would be incredibly high-risk. I mean, sure, a child that's both you and me? That would be amazing. But you're the one that I want, Tony. You're the one I'm in love with. You're the one I always want at my side. I'm not going to risk you for anything. Not even something like this."

"I changed mind."

Steve pulled his hands away. "What?"

OK, so here's the thing. Tony, over the years, had been known to be massively impulsive, and Steve's speech, though heartfelt and beautiful, had done the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do. It was meant to reassure Tony that he was doing the right thing, that if given the choice, Steve would choose him every time, and Tony's life was not worth risking for something so...extremely out of the ordinary that there were no approved methods for dealing with it outside of what internet fangirls had come up with for their favored slash pairings (and Tony was not about to take advice from them, and yeah, so he knew about that sort of stuff. So what? He made it his business to at least be familiar with all modes and methods of internet culture).

But instead of comforting him or assuring him, Steve's words had provided clarity for him. Yes, this was absolutely horrifying, and no, there was not exactly a manual that he could follow, but what this was, at its heart, was life. It was a life they had created out of their love for one another (all right and horniness). There was something almost...pure about it. This wasn't a life born at the bottom of a whiskey bottle or a quick getting-off-of-rocks-before-going-to-war. This wasn't a desperate need for an heir. This was two people absolutely crazy about each other creating a whole new life from that love. It was not done in the most conventional way, no, and there were bound to be complications of some sort that would arise from it, but it was, at its heart, creating life from love.

Jesus Christ, when had he turned into such a sap?

He didn't know where this sentiment was coming from. He wasn't even sure if his rational mind agreed with it. All he knew was that he and Steve had created a life together.

And he wanted to keep it.

Not just keep it but bear it and care for it and raise it. It might be a little boy with Steve's eyes and his talent for engineering. Or maybe a little girl with his eyes and Steve's knack for getting into trouble. Whatever it was, whoever it was, Tony couldn't help desperately wanting to find out.

Forget the danger or the insanity of the situation. Tony wanted this kid, damn it!

"I want it, Steve. I want this kid."

Steve swallowed, the gulp audible even to Tony's ear. "Are you sure?"

"More or less."

"You can't be 'more or less' sure about something like this, Tony. You have to be absolutely sure. This is— You're asking a lot of— You know what you just said 'yes' to, don't you?"

"Yeah, having this kid. Having our kid."

That seemed to give Steve pause, his head tilted and his mouth dropped open the faintest bit as those words truly sunk into his brain.

"I know it's crazy and insane and impractical and impossible, but think about it. It's a kid we made. We did this. A kid with our genes—"

That seemed to bring Steve back, and he scowled and said, "Yeah, my ailments and your taste for alcohol."

"You don't know that. You don't know what the serum did to your DNA. And hey, I've been dry for well over a year now! Look, I know it sounds stupid, but it's just… Would it be such a bad thing?"

Steve leaned forward and put his hands on Tony's shoulders, kneading his fingers in gently. "Tony, honey, listen to yourself. Think about what you're really saying. It's… I know it all sounds great in theory, but in practice, it's… You're talking about having a baby, Tony. You, an adult, human male. And not just that but a superhero. An Avenger. You really think bringing a child into this is such a good idea? They'd have a target painted on their back from day one."

"Yeah, but we could protect them better than anyone—"

"Tony—"

"Look, Steve, you can either support me on this, or you can get lost. I know it's crazy, and I know it's insane, and I know I'm just asking for trouble, but I want this, Steve, I do. I can't explain it. I just… I need this."

Steve went pale. "Tony," he said, slow and unsure, "you heard Bruce. You know what he said."

"Yeah, I know what he said, but he's not exactly an ob/gyn. He doesn't know anything more about this than we do—"

"He knows that you're a man, Tony. You're not made for this."

Tony scoffed. "I don't see why not. I could do this."

Steve again spoke slowly, like he was trying to reason with an insane man.

"Tony, you're a fella. There's no place for this to—" he made a squeamish face and an odd hand gesture, "—come out of. It's not going to— We need Thor. We'll get in touch with Thor. Bruce said he's been spending time with Dr. Foster. We'll contact her and see if she can put us in touch with—"

"OK, fine. Call Thor. But I'm still doing this, Steve. I don't know how, but I'm doing it."

Steve looked like Tony had just ripped his guts out from him, face fallen, eyes pained. "I really wish you wouldn't."

"You said it was my choice, and you said you'd support me no matter what I chose, right?"

Steve exhaled a breath as he found his own words thrown right back at him.

"Yeah," he said with a quiet murmur.

"Then we do this."

Steve closed his eyes, squeezing them tight as though to talk himself out of protesting. "Fine," he said and opened his eyes again to meet Tony's gaze. "If that's what you want, then that's what we do."


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

"The Goddess Esmeralda is a…unique creature," Thor said as he settled himself onto the couch in the penthouse's living area. "I think perhaps the term you may use for her is 'naïve.' She sees the universe in a very simple way, and she has really but one purpose and quest in her existence. I offer my sincerest apologies, for you were caught in the middle of what she presumed was her business with me."

Tony just waved off his concern and told him not to worry about it, but Steve pursed his lips and sat at attention, back straight, and steely gaze focused on Thor.

"Thank you, Thor, but that doesn't help us. Tony's—"

But Thor just raised a hand and smiled gently. "Aye, the Man of Iron is with child."

Tony cringed. It sounded so…wrong…when put that way.

Thor ignored his obvious discomfort and said, "May I ask, my friend, precisely what the Goddess said to you when she cast the spell?"

"Does it matter?"

_"Tony,"_ Steve muttered in a quiet exhale, but Thor just said, "It matters most gravely. She does not expend her powers needlessly. I fear there is more to this than meets the eye."

"Like?"

"Tony," Bruce said, almost pleadingly, "just tell Thor what exactly happened."

He sighed and thought back to that fight. "I don't know. I stepped out of the armor. I was checking on something. She was there. I didn't know she was there. We came face-to-face. She said something about me being bonded or having a bonded or something like that. Said she'd never known one so strong. Said it was a shame 'my kind' couldn't bear that love or something like that. It didn't make sense. She said something like, ' _We'll need to fix that_ ,' and she touched my mouth with her finger, and the next thing I know, I'm flat on my back on the ground lacking certain parts and sporting others."

Thor's face had gone pale, and he swallowed and sat forward. "Are you certain that's what she said?"

He shrugged. "As best I can figure. We're talking almost two months and two fights ago."

"Why? What is it? What's wrong?" Steve asked, sensing something from Thor's tone that had gone clear over Tony's head. Thor focused his gaze on Tony, almost as though he was inspecting him, before he turned his attention to Steve.

"I was mistaken," Thor said, sounding a little too sure for Tony's liking. "I had thought perhaps it was simply a timed spell, but it was not. It was one that has done exactly as was intended."

"Meaning?" Tony asked, and Thor smiled at him. Tony would say it was equal parts uneasy and delighted.

"Part of the spell was reversed once the desired outcome was reached."

Recognition dawned on Bruce's face. "When Tony conceived. When he was a woman, I mean."

"Aye," Thor said with a nod.

"He changed back to being our Tony once he had conceived as female Tony."

Thor nodded again, and Tony sputtered out a few non-words, glancing between Thor and Bruce, before he said, "What? What the hell was the point? And how does that even work? Wouldn't it make more sense to reverse if nothing had happened but not reverse at all if something did?"

But Thor just met his gaze, seemingly perplexed that Tony was perplexed.

"The Goddess Esmeralda," he said, "or Esmeralda the Divine, was the keeper of fertility for the most ancient beings of the universe. It is believed she is a physical manifestation of life itself. It was she to whom couples that wished to conceive would pay tribute. She was a benevolent creature, but she was also, as I said, quite naïve. She sees the universe in a simple way. There are those that are bonded, and those that are not."

"Bonded?" Bruce asked. "What do you mean 'bonded'?"

Thor smiled, genially, like he was enjoying being able to be the one to explain for a change. "As I understand it, there is a belief on Midgard of the 'soul mate.' To the Goddess and the ancients, they were 'bondmates.' Midgardians romanticize the soul mate but cannot actually sense them."

"But this Esmeralda can," Steve supplied, and Tony only then realized Steve was holding his hand and squeezing it for dear life.

Thor nodded. "She sensed that our Man of Iron was bonded to another, and I believe she sensed to whom it was. It is why she cast her spell the way she did."

"Why?" Tony asked. "Why would she even—?"

Thor took a breath. "Because, to the Goddess, there is no greater manifestation of the union between two bondeds than to conceive a child together. It was actually considered the utmost honor to be blessed in such a way by the Goddess. There are many across the galaxy that could only wish to have the Goddess Esmeralda bless them so and would envy you greatly for that which she has bestowed upon you."

"Look, you're not from around here," Tony said and didn't lessen the hold he had on Steve's hand. "I think you might be a little confused as to what the word 'blessed' really means."

But Thor just smiled at him, as though Tony had so much to learn about the wonders of the cosmos.

"I understand what the term means on Midgard. It may not seem to be so, but it is a blessing bestowed upon you by life herself. It is a gift, and a sacred one at that. I know it does not seem as such, but you should be honored that the Goddess Esmeralda felt your bond with the Captain deserved to be solidified and celebrated in such a manner."

"Yeah, that's great, Thor," Bruce said and sat forward a little. "But I'm not sure exactly how biology works on Asgard or anywhere else in the…cosmos—"

"Ever thought you'd be saying anything like that?" Tony mused to him. Bruce just gave a half- hearted smile and continued his thought.

"But here on Earth, it isn't… It's not—"

"Tony can't have a baby," Steve said without fanfare. "Simple as that. He's not made for it."

Tony frowned and turned to him. "Hey, I thought we agreed—"

"I know what we agreed," Steve said, "but I'm just saying. It's not… It's not supposed to be possible. You're a fella, and here, fellas don't have babies."

Tony shrugged. "Well, to be fair, I wasn't exactly a _fella_ when it happened."

"No, I understand that," Steve said, "but the fact remains that you're a fella, and here on Earth, fellas don't have babies."

"It could kill him," Bruce said, and both Tony and Steve turned to look at him.

"It's not going to kill him," Steve said, and Tony detected just a hint of anger — and challenge — in his voice.

But Bruce just frowned at Steve and said, "It could. Depending on how the placenta has attached—"

"Uh, didn't you say I have a handy-dandy uterus stuffed inside of me?" Tony said. "Pretty sure that's what it's used for."

Bruce just ran a hand through his unruly hair. "I know that, Tony, but you're not a— This is completely uncharted territory here. You're not a woman. There's really no good, solid information to go on for this. You might have the most uncomplicated pregnancy in the history of the world…or you could be dead of a hemorrhage or something like that tomorrow. And is this even something you _want_ to do? I know you're all about science, Tony, but this isn't a science project. It's… It's a kid."

He rolled his eyes. "I know that, boo-bear. But I just… I don't know." He squawked out a laugh. "I don't know. I honestly don't fucking know." He laughed a little more and rubbed a hand over his face. "I mean, could it really…?"

"You know it could," Bruce said solemnly. "To be fair, lots of things could. Every time you go out as Iron Man could be your last, but this… This is something you could actually do something about."

Steve just squeezed his hand a little tighter. "It's not going to kill him. He's not dying," he said, but Bruce just frowned at him.

"Steve, come on, you're not a stupid guy. Even you know the risks and challenges something like this would pose."

"Friends," Thor said as Steve was gearing up to counter Bruce's comment, "I am afraid you are misunderstanding the entire point of the Goddess's spell. It was not one done with malice or ill intent. It is not her intention to cause him any harm."

"Yeah? Then what _is_ her intention?" Steve asked, not even bothering to mask the venom in his voice.

Not that Thor seemed to notice this venom. If he did, he did a damned good job of hiding whatever he thought of it, as he just smiled at Steve, plainly, like what he was about to say was the simplest thing in the world.

"To offer you that which she believes you, as bondeds, desire most."

Steve just stared at Thor, but Tony rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, that doesn't make any— First of all, what the hell does this 'bonded' thing mean? And Steve and I are bonded? How the hell are Steve and I bonded?"

Thor shrugged. "I cannot sense it myself, but she can. It is in her nature. It is her gift. As I said, there are those that are bonded and those that are not. She sensed the bond that you and the Captain share. As she understands it, such a bond necessitates conception."

"Jesus Christ," Tony muttered and rolled his eyes again, and he felt Steve squeeze his hand as Steve said, "So, what do we do?"

Thor shrugged. "I am not certain there is anything to do," he said. "This was a gift bestowed upon you, a way to strengthen and solidify your bond. It is meant to be a joyous moment, as there are many across the galaxy that would give their most prized possessions to be where you are right now."

Tony groaned and rubbed his hands over his face. "Sure, sure," he said finally. "Yeah, no, I totally get it. Magic lady thinks Steve and I need a kid to 'complete' us or something like that." He turned to Thor. "Hey, didn't she see you there? How come you and Jane aren't dealing with something like this right now instead of me and Steve?"

"My Jane and I do not require the additional assistance that you and the Captain do. I do believe she was there to inquire as to how my Jane and I fare, but—"

He paused his thoughts and grinned at Tony.

"—I do believe she was distracted by a pair of bondmates in greater need of her services."

"But Tony _can't_ have a baby!" Steve reiterated. "I don't know how it is on Asgard, but here on Earth, Tony — a human male — _can't_ have a baby. It's not—"

Thor put a hand up to silence him. "Yes, I understand that, my friend—"

"Yeah, no, not sure that you do, Tarzan. See, my body is not designed for child-bearing — and I can't believe those words are actually coming out of my mouth—"

"I'm still surprised by the fact that there is one growing inside of you," Bruce said, and Tony sighed, his shoulders dropping, but Steve shot daggers at him, making Bruce wince and cower just the slightest.

"But evidently this—" he motioned down at himself, "—thing could potentially kill me if I don't do something about it, so I—" He looked at Bruce. "I gotta get it out. How am I going to get it out?"

Bruce shrugged. "Surgery's the only way I can think of— And I am not a surgeon, Tony! I am not performing surgery on you!"

"Come on!" Tony said with a whine. "Who else can I trust to do it?"

"A licensed medical professional. I'm not a surgeon, Tony."

"Well, I can't do it on myself!"

"You're not a surgeon either, Tony."

Tony frowned and turned to Steve, who looked upon him in horror. "Tony, no," he said, his voice firm but with just the barest hint of a terrified waver. "I'm not cutting you open. I don't know the first thing about that."

"Yeah? Well, whose fault is it that I'm even in this predicament in the first place? Shouldn't you be the one to fix what you fucked up?"

Steve's face blanched at that, and he began to sputter out several _I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Tony_ s at him, but Tony just put his hands up to Steve's face and held him gently, brushing his thumbs against Steve's cheekbones.

"Hey! Hey, Cap. Babe. Sweetheart. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it," he soothed. He honestly didn't blame Steve for this. OK, maybe a little part of him did, but only because Steve had been the one to, well, _impregnate_ him.

Jesus Christ, the fucked-up world Nick Fury had pulled him into!

"Tony, I'm so sorry. I never meant for anything like this to happen. I'd take it back if I could. I'd endure this for you if I could. You know I would."

Tony shushed him, continuing the stroking motions against his face. He thought it odd for only a moment that he was the one in trouble and yet here he was comforting Steve over it.

"Shh…babe, it's OK. It's going to be OK. We'll get through it. Remember? That's what you said. We'll get through this. It'll be OK. We'll figure it out."

"I think," Bruce said, and Tony broke contact with Steve to look at him, "that we might have to get in contact with someone at former SHIELD. They're the only ones that would even begin to be able to have any way of dealing with something like this."

"No," Steve said immediately. "This doesn't go beyond the Avengers. We can't trust anyone beyond us."

"I know, Steve. But we're running out of options here. The longer the fetus gestates, the harder it'll be to…fix…things."

Tony just shook his head and buried his face in his hands, his elbows braced on his knees. "I can't believe this is happening."

"I am sorry for all the pain and suffering the Goddess Esmeralda has caused you," Thor said, and Tony could tell he truly meant the words he spoke. "She did not mean it in that way, I assure you, though would smiting her in any way remedy your misfortune, t'would be something I should hesitate in no part to do on your behalf."

"Thanks, buddy," he said and looked over at him. "So, killing her won't break the spell, huh?"

"Nay," Thor said with a sorrowful shake of the head. "The magic of Esmeralda the Divine does not work in that way."

" _Divine_ ," Steve muttered, scoffing at the word. "Can she be reasoned with? If we talk to her, can we reason with her?"

"Yeah," Tony said, "if she thought this was a _good_ idea, I'm starting to think she makes Loki look sane and rational."

"We have to try, Tony," Steve said. "Before this goes anywhere beyond this room. We have to see if there's any way we can fix this without—"

"Gutting me like a fish?"

Steve heaved a sigh. "That's not what I mean—"

"But it's the truth. It's what's gotta happen. Brucie did the ultrasound. I've got parts inside of me that I shouldn't have, and one of those parts is housing something that shouldn't ever be inside my body."

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bruce go contemplative and say, "Hey, Tony, you don't think this is actually how—"

Tony glared at him, unsure of what he was about to say but too into his discussion with Steve to care, and Bruce shrank back a little and said, "Never mind," allowing Steve and Tony to continue.

"Exactly," Steve said. "This isn't well-worn territory. Would any surgeon know the first thing about…that? About removing that? About not doing anything to hurt you in the process? I'm not letting you die on an operating table."

Tony's mouth twitched from side-to-side. "Still freaked about that reactor surgery, aren't you?"

Steve shivered a little bit. "Never been so scared in my…" He shook his head. "The point is, I'm not letting some butcher hack you open only to find that they don't know the first thing about what they're doing—"

"So you'll let me swell up with a parasite that'll no doubt kill me unless we find some way of getting it out?"

Steve's face fell. "No, Tony," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "Of course not. We'll find a way. I promise. We'll find a way." He glanced to Thor. "We start by contacting this Esmeralda. We see if she responds to reason."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I don't think so, babe. This is the woman that Rule 63'd me without even stopping to wonder if she should do it."

"Maybe she didn't intend for it to…go the way it did."

"Maybe she didn't mean for me to get knocked up?"

"Not exactly," Steve said with a shrug. "Maybe she didn't mean for you to…"

Tony sat back a little and raised an eyebrow. "Mean for me to _what_ , Steve?"

Steve swallowed. "Turn back into a fella? Maybe you were supposed to stay a—"

"If you say 'dame,' I'll smack you."

"— _woman_ ," Steve finished with an abashed smile. Yeah, he'd definitely been about to say 'dame.'

Bruce just sighed and said, "I can't believe we're having this conversation."

"You can't?" Tony said. "Try being the one that's going through this. You should all count yourselves lucky I haven't thrown myself out a window yet." He snapped his fingers. "Now, there's something! I could just throw myself down a flight of stairs—"

"Tony," Bruce said and face-palmed, shaking his head as he held his face in his hand, "there's no place for that to come out of. That's the issue here. There's no way to…expel it."

"Yeah, it's like a parasite or a tumor. And tumors you usually have to hack out."

"This is a bit more complicated than a tumor. Cap's right. There is no surgeon in the world that we're aware of that has any experience in this sort of thing. They wouldn't know the first thing of how to operate. You'd be a…test subject for them. A test case. Those don't usually go well, and I don't think I'd feel comfortable leaving you in the hands of a butcher. I can't even imagine how the Cap feels about it."

Tony swore he heard something like a growl rumble in Steve's throat. He might have found that a turn-on in a completely different situation.

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Tony asked, and Thor's head dropped to his chest as though in defeat.

"I shall attempt to contact the Goddess Esmeralda. Perhaps she may be willing to remove every last remnant of the hex that afflicts our friend."

"Out of the goodness of her heart?" Steve asked. "Or would she ask for something in return?"

Thor stood from his chair and grasped Mjolnir from the table. "That, I do not know."

~*~

Tony couldn't sleep.

Thor had left immediately after their conversation to seek out the Goddess Esmeralda or whatever the hell she called herself, and the excitement of the day had left Tony drained of all his resources. He'd tried to make his way down to his lab, but Steve had steered him in the direction of the bedroom, insisting he take a hot shower and try to settle down. Tony asked if Steve wanted to join him, practically leering as he did so — even if he actually didn't really feel like doing anything like that at the moment, it was always nice getting soapy and wet with Steve — but Steve looked like he was about to be sick at the very thought of it, and Tony…

Tony was crushed.

Clearly the very idea of what was happening to him, what was in him, disgusted Steve. To be fair, he wasn't all that happy about it himself, but there wasn't much he could do at the moment, and he'd thought Steve, at the least, would be able to understand that there wasn't anything he could do about it. He hadn't asked for this. Hell, even he could admit it creeped him out a bit.

But Steve… Steve didn't even want to touch him. Didn't even want to think about him like that. Just told him to go take a long, hot shower and he would have everything here waiting for him when he got out.

So, he got in the scalding hot shower, asking JARVIS to put the temperature as high as it could possibly go without burning him, and stood under the spray and soaped himself up, almost as though trying to wash the events of the past forty-eight hours off his body — trying to wash this thing from his body. He rubbed the cloth over his chest and shoulders and neck and back and then his abdomen, his hand coming to a dead stop over his lower abdomen where he knew… He flexed his fingers, the water cascading down his body and the soap suds swirling around the drain, and he wished… He wished more than anything he could reach in and rip the offending organ out. Like _Temple of Doom_ except with a misplaced uterus instead of a heart.

God, this didn't make any sense. Visitors from other realms, dead super soldiers coming back to life, unassuming scientists that could turn into giant, green rage monsters, portals to other worlds. He could accept that. He could deal with that. He could work his mind around those things. He could figure them out. This? This he couldn't figure out for the life of him. It didn't make sense. It was wrong.

It was horrifying.

He hadn't wanted to say anything, but he'd noticed some odd changes as of late. His face had softened just the slightest, and he was pretty sure his beard wasn't growing in as regularly as it once had. There was a tenderness to his pectorals, something he'd thought had been nothing more than dead nerves finally coming back online after his reactor surgery. His pants were slightly tighter, almost like his hips had spread just the slightest amount. It was all stuff that, separate, he wouldn't have given much thought to. But together? Oh, god, together…

Together was the most frightening picture he could ever imagine.

He wanted it gone. He wanted it out. Forget what he'd said to Steve earlier. That was before Bruce had driven home the horror of what he was risking. That was before Thor had oh-so- casually informed him of what the entire purpose of the hex was. He wanted it out of his body. He wanted his body exactly the way it had been before that crazy little diviner had worked her magic on him and turned him into an internet meme. Yeah, sure, at the time it had been fun, even titillating. How many men got to find out what it was like to live as a woman? To fuck as a woman? To be fucked as a woman by a gorgeous super soldier? Look, it wasn't like he and Steve hadn't taken full advantage of it, and yeah, there was a part of him that feared toward the end of it that Steve preferred him as a woman, and as much fun as that week had been, he wasn't certain he would be willing to stay a woman the rest of his life.

A switch-off back-and-forth, on the other hand, might be something worth looking into—

No! Oh, fuck no! Not if this was the outcome. The hell he was ever allowing anything like this to ever happen again. Granted, the only way that could happen is if he were to be turned into a woman again, but the fact of the matter was he'd just used the term _again_. If he were to be turned into a woman _again_. Because it had happened once before. Because this was his life now. Being turned into a woman and being impregnated by his ninety-five-year-old fiancé — who was completely disgusted by him now — was his life.

Hand still over his abdomen, he smacked his forehead against the ceramic tile wall. God almighty, why did Nick Fury ever have to come into his life?

He didn't cry. Starks didn't cry. Hell, he didn't even cry at his parents' funeral. But god, if he wasn't tempted. If there wasn't some weird emotion building up inside him—

Wait, no, that was—

He slammed open the shower door and went over to the toilet, and before he could even get the seat up, he vomited into the bowl, sinking to his knees from the force of it and gagging by the time he'd finished. There were tears in his eyes now, a natural effect of the vomiting rather than anything emotional, and the soap he hadn't rinsed off his body was dripping onto the floor, creating a puddled mess.

"Tony?" he heard over the noise of the shower. "Oh, honey."

Steve reached over him and flushed the toilet, and he gently pulled Tony back to his feet. "You OK?" he asked as he checked him over.

"I was sick," he said simply.

"Yeah," Steve murmured and brushed the wet hair out of his eyes. "Come on. Let's finish getting you cleaned off. You're getting soap all over."

He tried to wrench away from Steve, but Steve wouldn't let him, instead guiding him back to the shower and helping him in.

"'m sorry," he murmured as Steve took the discarded wash cloth and began to swipe it over his body.

"For what?" he asked, his voice soothing and gentle.

"I'm disgusting. I'm sorry."

Steve didn't even falter in his steps. "What are you talking about?"

"This," he said and motioned down at himself just as Steve stuck his head under the shower head to wash the remaining soap out of his hair. Steve didn't ask him anything more, and he didn't say anything as Steve ran gentle fingers through his hair, no doubt getting himself soaked in the process. Instead, Tony opened his mouth and let it fill with some water before he sloshed it around and then spit it down toward the drain, doing what he could to rinse out the acrid taste of bile.

When the last of the soap was washed away, Steve shut the water off and guided him back out of the shower, and he wrapped him up in a big, fluffy towel and dried him off, rubbing the towel over his skin in so soothing a way that Tony began to feel almost boneless in his grasp.

"Don't fall asleep on me yet," Steve said, but Tony was so fucking tired, and he felt awful, and Steve's hands were like magic. They felt so damned good.

He began to sway on his feet until he felt strong arms scoop him up into an embrace, and he let himself be carried from the bathroom and back into the bedroom. Steve set him on the bed and helped him into a clean shirt and a pair of briefs then drew down the blankets and tucked Tony into them.

"Go to sleep, honey," he said, a gentle hand on his forehead before he scooped up the discarded towel and vanished.

Tony dozed for all of ten minutes before he realized Steve had left the room, and his eyes shot open as sorrow and dread flooded his veins. The lights were off both in the bedroom and the bathroom, and Steve was nowhere in the vicinity. Which wasn't really surprising given that he was completely disgusted by Tony. By something he'd done to Tony, but that was beside the point. Tony was a freak, and there was no easy way out of this latest predicament he'd gotten himself into.

Jesus, it was almost enough to wish he was back in that cave in Afghanistan with a car battery attached to his heart. Almost.

He curled up on his side, his hair damp even after being towel-dried by Steve, and squeezed his eyes shut tight, willing himself to fall asleep. Maybe this was all a dream. Maybe it was all just a horrible nightmare, and if he fell asleep, then he'd immediate wake up back in the normal, real world where this thing he had gotten himself into (with Steve's help — can't forget Steve's help) was completely impossible.

But sleep didn't come, and he tossed from his side to his back to his side to his stomach to his back again, and the next thing he knew, three hours had passed and Steve still hadn't come to bed.

Well, fuck him.

If this was the way he was going to act, then fuck him. If he was too disgusted by Tony because of something that he had an equal part in bringing about, then fuck him. Tony didn't need him. He'd figure this fucking thing out on his own.

He grabbed a pair of pajama bottoms out of a drawer and put them on. He'd go down to the lab. He'd tinker. Maybe he could figure out some way of fixing himself the old-fashioned way. With actual science, not fucking magic mumbo-jumbo.

He left the bedroom and went down the stairs to the living area where he found Steve sitting on the couch, sharp gaze focused on the tablet he held in his hand. Tony stopped and eyed him over a moment. He'd assumed Steve would either be sleeping on the couch or maybe even sleeping down in his old quarters.

Against his better judgment, he padded over to the couch and stood next to Steve. Before he could get a word out Steve broke his concentration on the tablet and looked up at him.

"Tony," he said and frowned a little. "What are you doing up? Go back to sleep."

Tony folded his arms and stared him down. "What are you doing?"

Steve glanced at the tablet. "Some research."

"Yeah? What kind of research?"

Steve shrugged. If Tony didn't know better, he'd say the move came off as sheepish. "Just a little…reading up on pregnancy."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "In men," he said, his tone flat.

Steve scratched the back of his head. "That was…kind of a dead end," he said with a slight grimace. "Turns out there are some very interesting, uh… _stories_ …on the internet about that…sort of thing. Very…imaginative."

"Yeah, I think I know the type you're talking about. Clearly, those aren't any help for our case."

"No," Steve said with a resigned sigh. "And there's really nothing actually scholarly out there."

"What, no published cases about men that are turned into women that get pregnant as women that get turned back into men that are still pregnant even as men? It's such a common occurrence, I don't understand why."

"Closest thing I've been able to find is, uh—" he glanced at the tablet, " _fetus in fetu_ ," he read, the words sounding unsure on his tongue.

"Not quite the same thing, though."

Steve shrugged. "As close as I can get without…" He made a face, and Tony almost wondered exactly what sort of stories he'd actually read.

Oh, he knew exactly what kind of stories Steve had stumbled onto; he just wanted to know _which ones_. God, he wasn't reading RPF about _them_ , was he? Yes, he knew what RPF was. Yes, he may have read a story or two in his day, one of which was so on-the-nose that he still thought it had to have been written either by Barton or Natasha.

"So, other than that?" he asked, and Steve shrugged and set the tablet down on the coffee table.

"Nothing."

"Oh. Well. Tough break."

He turned and began to make his way toward the elevator. "Where are you going?" Steve called out to him.

"Lab," he replied, and Steve sighed at him.

"Tony, go get some rest. The lab will still be there tomorrow."

"Eh," he said and spun back around to face Steve. "I do my best thinking at two in the morning."

Steve frowned at him. "Tony, please," he said, the words taking on a rather pleading tone. "Go to bed. You're exhausted. You're over-tired."

"I'm fine, Steve. Besides, this way you can have the bed to yourself. Don't need me in there grossing you out."

Steve sat back, perplexed. "What?" he asked, but Tony took that opportunity to step into the elevator and direct JARVIS to take him down to his lab.

He sighed out a breath of relief as the doors closed, but JARVIS cut in, " _Sir, Captain Rogers insists on knowing what you meant by the words 'grossing you out._ '"

"Eh, he knows what it means, J. Let him stew for a while."

" _I don't believe Captain Rogers understands what you meant by that._ "

"Yeah? He's smart. He'll figure it out."

The car stopped, and the doors opened to his lab. The lights were dim; JARVIS must have closed up shop without being told to do so after Tony had left...

That's right. The last time he'd been down here had been right before he'd sought Bruce out to run some tests on him. Fuck, it had only been a couple days, but it felt like so much longer than that.

He clapped his hands in the air and said, "OK, fellas. It's show time."

The lights came on, the hum of computers and other electronics warming up for use, and DUM-E beeped and whirred and rolled on over, shoving the unfinished Widow's bites at him.

"You've been holding onto these for two days?"

DUM-E whirred at him and set the bites down on the tabletop.

"Good boy," he murmured and pet the 'bot on his support strut. "Go mix me up something good. Daddy's not feeling too good."

He cringed at the word usage, but DUM-E just sped off to the blender station, and Tony called out to him, "Motor oil goes in cars, not in humans!"

" _Sir, Captain Rogers is requesting entry._ "

Tony just waved the request off, but the next thing he knew, Steve was making his way into the lab.

"Uh, security breach."

Steve shot him a flat look. "You gave me the override codes."

"Only to be used in a case of actual emergency." He flopped down hard on the chair. "What do you want, Capsicle?"

The not-quite-term-of-endearment startled Steve. "Capsicle?" he murmured then shook it off. "Tony, what's wrong?"

He snorted a laugh. "You're kidding, right?"

"Stop being so flippant. Did I say something? I'm trying—" He grimaced and scratched at his forehead. "I'm fumbling in the dark here. I don't really… I don't even know where to begin—"

Tony shrugged and twisted back and forth on his chair somewhat. "No, don't worry about it. I mean, hell, if I were in your shoes, I'd find the whole thing disgusting, too."

Steve looked like he was about to say something then stopped cold. "What?"

"No big deal," he said and began to swipe at screens. "I don't blame you. It's not exactly… It doesn't happen in the real world."

Steve frowned. "Tony, what are you talking about?"

Tony got up and moved over to another worktable. "Before? When I asked if you wanted to join me in the shower, and you looked like you'd rather go up against an entire Hydra battalion by yourself?"

Again, Steve just seemed perplexed and reiterated, "Tony, what in the world are you talking about?"

He started fiddling with the replacement arrows he'd left there. "The shower-thing? Where I said why don't you join me and you looked like I'd just asked you to murder puppies with a plastic knife."

Steve went a little pale, and he swallowed and stuttered out, "You, uh, you saw that?"

"Kind of hard to miss. Your poker face is shit."

He didn't wait for Steve to reply. He just went about making some tweaks to Barton's arrows, and after a few moments of silence, Steve said, "Tony, that wasn't… That wasn't what it seemed like."

"Wasn't it? You seemed pretty damned horrified that I was even suggesting anything remotely salacious—"

"It was that, but it wasn't that."

"Not doing yourself any favors here explaining, Steve."

"Tony, that wasn't you. That was all—"

"Oh, my god, if you give me the it's-not-you-it's-me, I'm going to repulsor your ass into the next zip code."

Steve just grabbed him by the arms and pulled him so they were facing one another. Tony wouldn't meet his gaze, and he folded his arms and made sure to pout extra noticeably so that Steve would get the drift that he didn't want to fucking talk about this.

"Tony," he said and kneaded his fingers into Tony's flesh, "that's not… Listen to me. I… Yeah, I didn't handle that the way I should have, and I know you think that it's you, but it's not you. It's me. I'm not disgusted by you. God, how could I be? I'm angry at myself, Tony. That's what that was about. I'm angry with myself because I…did this to you. It's my fault this is happening, and I… I should never have let this happen. I should have had more control over myself. I should have stopped it before it got so far. But now it's all this and I just… I need to fix it, Tony. I need to figure out a way to fix it and make it better. I just…don't want to hurt you any more than I already have."

Tony sighed and hung his head a moment. "OK, look, Steve?" He looked back up at him. "I know you're all about the whole self-sacrificing, taking responsibility for everyone kind-of-a- thing, but honestly, this is one situation where I could really do without your self-pity. Yeah, you feel like shit for this. Yeah, you blame yourself for it. Fucking fantastic. But guess what? All that blame isn't going to mean shit for figuring out a way to put this right. So, feel like shit. Blame yourself. Go for it. But I fucking need you to be in my corner with this. I'm terrified, Steve. I'm fucking terrified here. Banner's telling me my body can't handle it, and Thor's telling me this is part of some spell put on me by a nutjob that thinks you and I are 'soulmates' and need a baby to complete us like some thirteen-year-old's first fanfic. I don't want to admit it, but I can feel my body changing, and it's scaring the hell out of me. This is not supposed to happen. This is supposed to be biologically impossible. And yet here we are, and I'm fucking pregnant, Steve, and there is no way to fix it that does not involve some sort of high risk."

Steve's brows drew together, and before he knew it, he was pulled against Steve's broad chest, and Steve was holding him and rubbing his back and shushing him and telling him it was going to be OK.

And Tony? Tony was crying. Not sobbing. Not wailing. But crying, lightly, for the first time in forever. Crying against Steve's chest and pressing his face into the solid and secure muscle he felt there, wetting his t-shirt and wrapping tight arms around Steve's narrow waist. He didn't know where the emotion came from, but loathe to let his guard down even that much, he snuffled some and said, "I'm crying, Steve. I'm fucking crying here! Look at what I've been reduced to!"

Steve just laughed a little, and he pressed a kiss to the crown of Tony's head and said, "There's nothing wrong with crying, honey."

"The fuck there isn't. Chin up, boy. Starks don't cry."

"Hey," Steve said, and he pulled away from Tony and took a firm hold of Tony's chin in his hand. Steve met his gaze, and then with pursed lips and fire in his eyes said, "Fuck Howard. He was a pathetic excuse for a father, and I ever get the chance to see that son-of-a-bitch again, I'll deck him into next Tuesday."

Tony snuffled again and said, "I don't know if I should be thrilled or horrified that my boyfriend just threatened to beat up my dead father."

"It's not a threat. It's a promise."

Tony nodded his understanding and nestled against Steve's broad and inviting chest again, and Steve rocked him back and forth, putting gentle but firm arms around Tony and holding him close.

"I'm like him."

"Huh?"

"Howard," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm like him. I never wanted to be, but I am. I'm so much like him."

"You're not."

"I am."

"Not in the ways that matter."

He just nestled his head closer and waited for Steve to continue his thought.

"Not in the important ways. Howard was selfish. Howard was always in it for himself. That's what… I thought you were the same way when I first met you. I thought you were in it for yourself the same way Howard was but you didn't even have the humility to know pain and suffering. Howard had worked his way up. He was selfish, but he'd made his fortune himself. I thought you were just his spoiled brat of a son that had just had the fortune of being born into the right family. But I was wrong. You're not like him — not in those ways. Yes, you're both flashy, and you both love attention, and you both love to build. But you care. You care so much. You only want to do what's right. You want to be more than just the…Merchant of Death. You want to give life, create life, build life, sustain life. And you already have. Look at JARVIS. Look at DUM-E— Don't even start with picking on poor DUM-E. You love them. They're like your children. You watch out for them, you care for them, you protect them. You rescued DUM-E out of a scrap heap and rebuilt him — not _better_ than he was but _as_ he was because you love him. Because you don't want him to change because you love him the way he is. You want the world to think Tony Stark is some cold, uncaring bastard that's only in it for himself because to not be might leave you vulnerable, and the thought of being vulnerable terrifies you. Because Howard Stark was a poor excuse for a father that didn't deserve such a brilliant and selfless and caring son as you.

Tony snuffled one more time and rubbed his face against Steve's chest. "Goddamn it, Steve. I'd just stopped fucking crying."

"Yeah? I mean every word of that, and I'll repeat it every goddamned day for the rest of our lives until you believe it." Steve kissed his crown again and added. "You are the most important thing in my life, and I'm going to do right by you if it kills me."


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

He awoke to the scent of bacon frying and coffee brewing, both things that were guaranteed to rouse him from his slumber and lure him into the kitchen like a siren song.

But not this morning.

The bacon was making him sick, and even the coffee was…unpleasant. He threw the covers back and ran into the bathroom and threw up again, but given that he hadn't eaten anything since the last time he'd thrown up, there was nothing to come up except for bile.

He vomited until he gagged, and he flushed the toilet and rinsed his mouth out and wiped away the tears that had streamed down his cheeks. No, he wasn't crying again. The force of the retching just did it to him.

The scents coming from the kitchen turned his stomach once more, but he knew Steve was just being Steve and was trying to do nice things for him, so he left the bedroom and stumbled down the steps to the living area, and he walked past the couch and made his way over to the kitchen.

Thor and Bruce were already there, sitting at the island, Thor presumably awaiting his breakfast while Bruce crunched away on his. Steve was tending to the bacon at the stove, and Bruce smiled at him and said, "You really shouldn't have coffee, but Steve insisted."

He motioned to what Tony knew was his place setting and saw a large mug of steaming hot coffee sitting there.

"Tea would be better," Bruce said as Tony sat down.

"Yeah, well, tea also sucks," he said and dumped a heaping portion of sugar into his coffee. Thor nodded his approval while Bruce made a face.

"You two have the worst eating habits I've ever seen in adult males."

"And we're both still alive and in perfect health," Tony said and took a gulp of his black liquid god. The coffee went down OK, but that bacon. He glanced over to where Steve stood tending to the sizzling strips of pork product. Ugh.

He sneered a little and turned away from the stove, and even though he'd already known it, it actually hit him that Thor was there.

"Aren't you supposed to be scouring the nine realms for our friend?"

"I have put out word that I seek audience with her. She will know where to find me."

"How do you know she'll come to you?"

Thor just picked up his coffee. "She is very amenable to those that wish to speak with her. Plus, I suspect she'll wish to know that her work has produced its desired outcome."

Tony scowled at this, but Steve asked, "Do you think there's more that she wants?" as he took several slices of overcooked bacon off the pan. He set them on a paper-towel-covered plate and set the plate on the tabletop. Thor gladly snatched up several slices.

"I do not know," he said and began to crunch on a slice. "She does not waste her talents, however. There is a reason she chose to focus her attentions on our friend. And you as well. I do not believe this fate would have befallen our Man of Iron did she not sense the bond between you."

"You keep talking about bonds," Bruce said as he munched on his muesli. "What does that mean? How did Steve and Tony even get bonded in the first place?"

"No such thing as it," Tony said and shook his head at the bacon proffered by Thor. Thor shrugged and snatched up the remaining slices. "Made-up bullshit to sell romance novels and romcoms."

Bruce shrugged at this, seeming to agree with him, but Thor said, "It is not something that is made. It is something that _is_."

"What's that mean?" Bruce asked as Thor crunched on another slice of bacon.

"Many bonds — the strongest and most developed — were forged in the early years of the galaxy," he explained through a mouthful of bacon. "They have always _been_ , and they always will be. They follow each bonded from lifetime to lifetime. Each lifetime affords the bondeds to grow and strengthen their bonds. It is… I suppose the term for it is that is it fated to always be."

"So, there's no escaping it?" Tony asked, waving his mug around in the air as though motioning to emphasize his question.

"Why would you desire to?" Thor asked, genuinely confused. "Bondmates are souls that are perfect matches for one another. They are each other's true balance. They are… I believe even on Midgard they are the most desired pairing one can have."

Tony pursed his lips a little before he chugged the remainder of his coffee and set the mug back on the table. "So, she came here all the way from her…seashell or wherever the hell she lives because she thinks I'm bonded to Steve?"

Thor shook his head and gladly took another plate of freshly burned bacon from Steve. Tony's nose twitched at the scent, his stomach doing a flip, and he swallowed the bile down and thought about getting himself some dry toast.

"Nay," Thor said as he crunched on more bacon. "You were but in the right place at the right time. She did not seek you out. You merely caught her attentions when you made your presence known to her."

"Yeah," he said and got up from the chair. "I don't know about this whole 'soul mates' business. First of all, I don't believe in that. Second of all, if it were true, don't you think we would know about it?"

Thor just smiled a little. "For all the advancements that have been wrought on Midgard, there is still much your fellow man has yet to advance to."

"We're not smart enough to sense it," Steve said, mouth flat as Tony reached into the cabinet for the bread. "Hey, don't you want any bacon?"

He grimaced as he pulled the bread out and closed the cabinet door. "Don't take this the wrong way, babe, but the smell of it is really not sitting well with me."

Steve's face fell. "I'm sorry, Tony. I know how much you—"

"I know. I wouldn't have thought it, either. I can handle it, I think — I mean being in the same room with it — but I'm not sure I could get a slice down without upchucking it right back up."

Steve just continued to frown at him. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

"Nah, I'll just have dry toast. The thought of that doesn't seem to send my stomach into somersaults."

Sad-eyed, Steve just leaned in and pressed a kiss to his temple as he put a hand to his back and gave a few soothing rubs.

"Steven!" Thor called. "How go these scrambled eggs you Midgardians are so fond of?"

Steve gave Tony a pat on the back and said, "Coming right up," before he went over to the fridge and pulled the carton out. Tony stuck a few slices of bread in the toaster then sat back down at the island.

"If you want, there's some muesli left," Bruce said and motioned to the box on the counter.

Tony snorted a laugh. "I'm sorry. Do you see me wearing Birkenstocks and hugging trees?"

"It's healthy."

"Yeah, I want something as appealing to the palate as that, I'll eat the cardboard box it comes in. Probably do less damage to my teeth, too."

"You don't know, Tony. You might like it."

He rolled his eyes and grabbed the carton of orange juice from where it sat by Thor's hand. "Steve, if you backwashed into this—" he said as he poured some into his empty coffee mug.

"No, I poured it in a glass," Steve muttered as he beat up a dozen eggs in a mixing bowl.

"Captain America drinks from the carton?" Bruce said, an amused smile on his face as he looked between Steve and Tony.

"Captain America is a slob that can't be bothered to load a dishwasher."

"Well," Steve said and poured the egg mixture into the pan, "they didn't have them back in my day, and modern-day technology can be so gosh-darn confusing sometimes—"

"You're lazy. The machine literally does all the work for you except putting the dishes in and taking the dishes out."

"And the soap tablets," Steve said as he cooked up the eggs. "Machine doesn't dispense those on its own."

"Wait," Bruce said. "So, you're the neat one and he's the slob?" He pointed at Tony and Steve respectively with his spoon.

"Wouldn't have thought it, would you?"

Bruce shrugged. "I figured Captain America to be one for military-precise cleanliness — you know, folded corners, immaculate quarters—"

"Here's something they never told you in the history books: Captain America is the worst soldier in the history of the world. He doesn't follow orders, he doesn't keep his uniform neat and tidy, and I don't want to know what his barracks looked like based on how I've come back to him practically living in his own filth after spending two days at the California office. You want a sorry sight? Captain America passed out on the couch at two-thirty in the morning surrounded by empty bags of Doritos and cans of 'Real Sugar' Pepsi."

"It was Pepsi-Cola back in my day. The cheap stuff," Steve explained, in no way defending himself from Tony's accusations. "Coca-Cola was the good stuff. That's what we'd get in the army. Just doesn't taste the same way now. Even the real sugar Pepsi-Cola doesn't taste the same as I remember it, but I don't like that high-fructose corn syrup. It gives it a funny flavor."

Bruce just shot Tony a questioning look, and Tony nodded and said, "Yes, this is what I live with every day of my life."

He met Steve's gaze, and he smiled innocently and said, "Love you, babe."

Steve could only be bothered to shake his head a little and say, "Your toast is burning."

He jumped up from his chair and went over to the toaster, and he jiggered the handle to get it to pop up. The toast wasn't exactly burned, but it was getting there, and he grabbed a fork from the flatware drawer and used it to pull the pieces out without burning his fingers.

"Should I butter them?"

"Could your stomach handle butter?"

"Eh, maybe jelly?"

Steve nodded his approval, and Tony went to the fridge and pulled out the half-empty jar of organic blueberry preserves. "Steve, I swear to god, if you were double-dipping in this jar—"

"It's fine," Steve said as Tony sat down with the blueberry preserves, the toast, and a knife.

"I notice you didn't deny it."

"You're really grossed out by the prospect of my saliva? After the things we've done?"

"You do know there's enzymes in saliva that break down food, right? So we can digest it easier? Oh, but please, spit into my jar of jelly."

He opened the jar but was relieved to see that it didn't appear as though the preserves had begun to break down any.

"You're lucky," he muttered and began to spread some of the preserves onto his toast.

Steve dumped the cooked eggs into a serving bowl and set it on the table, pressing a kiss to the top of Tony's head as he did so.

"How long have you two been together now," Bruce said as he leaned his chin into his palm, "and I still want to tell you two to get a room?"

"It's 'cause we're soul mates," Tony said with a slight sneer. He bit into the first slice of preserve- slathered toast and chewed. "We'll kill you with our fated-to-be cuteness."

"There is such a theory," Thor said as he dumped most of the eggs onto his plate. Steve frowned. Evidently, he'd been counting on sharing the eggs.

"What do you mean?" Bruce asked.

"Oh, well— Steven, if you would be so kind as to procure that delicious tomato condiment you Midgardians enjoy so much?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Ketchup, Goldilocks. The word you want is 'ketchup.'" Steve just grabbed the bottle from the fridge, and Thor continued.

"There is a theory that bondmates have such a connection. The passion never wanes from their relationship. It continues to burn and feed the embers of both lust and love. Bondmates also have a way of becoming so engrossed with one another that they are able to block out the presence of their closest brethren. And it is said that bondmates can speak entire conversations with each other by just their eyes."

Steve and Tony glanced at each other, their eyes doing a sort of dance as they gave this some consideration, while Bruce said, "So…we have to put up with this crap for the rest of our lives?"

"It is not such an awful thing. The bond between mates is so strong that it can work to better strengthen the relationships of those around them."

"You people feed off our residual energy," Tony said, and Thor looked at him in amusement. "I suppose that is one way of putting it."

Steve sat down in the chair adjacent to Tony, and he grabbed what was left of the eggs and the last two slices of bacon.

"How's your toast?" he asked, and Tony shrugged.

"All right. Wish I could cram half a pound of bacon down my gullet."

"Morning sickness?" Bruce said with a frown, and Tony dropped the slice of toast.

"Yeah, that's enough of that," he said, the mere thought of 'morning sickness' putting to bed any hunger pangs he might have had.

Steve glared at Bruce then turned to Tony. "Tony, honey, you need to eat."

"Keep up my strength? I'm eating for two now?"

Steve shook his head. "Tony, no, that's not what I meant—"

"I'm not hungry. I had my coffee, I had a few bites of toast, I'm fine."

"You're not fine. You haven't eaten anything since you threw up last night. You need to eat something."

He shrugged and stood up. "I'll have DUM-E fix me a smoothie. Have him dump some protein powder in it. I'll be fine."

He glanced down at Steve and met his soft, earnest concern. "Tony," he said, his tone even but firm if just a little pleading, "please. Just finish one slice."

He heaved out a heavy breath. "One slice?"

"Just the one," Steve said, and Tony held his gaze a moment longer before he sat back down and took another bite of the jelly-slathered toast.

"There's always muesli," Bruce said, and Tony rolled his eyes.

"If I get desperate enough, I'll give you a call."

He was actually able to get all three slices of toast down along with a full mug of orange juice, and much as he wanted to scurry on down to the lab and hide out there, he found himself instead curled up on the couch with Steve and watching the first _Star Wars_ movie — the good one, not the crap one — with Thor and Bruce taking up the other pieces of furniture. Barton and Romanoff, it turned out, had fucked off with Wilson to god-knows-where because there'd been a 'Bucky sighting,' and Steve had given them the go-ahead to check it out, leaving just the four of them for the duration.

It was after the movie had ended and they were debating whether or not to watch the empire strike back when there was an odd disturbance in the force. Tony felt a buzzing of sorts in the air, and the glassware behind the bar began to rattle. It almost sounded like a freight train was barreling through, some low rumble coming from seemingly nowhere. He exchanged a glance with the others, and it was when he finally turned to Thor that he saw Thor stand, Mjolnir at the ready.

There was a sudden sound of glass shattering and a bright lavender and gold flash, and Tony shielded his eyes from the assault, trying to make himself smaller to avoid any projectiles that might be coming for him because he was pretty sure _something_ had just broken.

When the flash dimmed, and the dust settled, Tony saw standing in his living room a tall, elegant- looking woman with long, honey-kissed hair and emerald-green eyes. She was lank but firm, her gown pale gossamer and pooling on the floor at her feet. There was an air of regality and innocence about her, an earnest curve to her rouged-tinted lips that made Tony want to run for the hills because the last time he'd seen that look — that face — he'd, well, been turned into a woman.

And gotten knocked up.

"Esmeralda," Thor said by way of greeting.

"Thor," she said, her voice like cut glass, "Son of Odin, I hear you've been looking for me."

"You hear right," Thor said. "You've been putting your spells to use on Midgard."

She shrugged. "They need as much help as they can get. Such poor, deceived creatures. I cannot fathom how you can stand it." She directed a quick aside to the other three men in the room and said, "No offense."

"None taken," Steve said, but his tone said his words were anything but earnest.

She shrugged again and turned back to Thor. "Any reason in particular for summoning me? I do have quite the schedule to keep. So many poor, lost souls in need of help."

Thor nodded, Mjolnir still in hand. "That is precisely why I called for you. I understand, Mistress, you sought nothing more than to aid in the bond between the Captain and what you perceive to be his bonded, but I must ask you to remove the spell you have lain upon the mighty Man of Iron."

She frowned and tilted her head, and she kept Thor's gaze for only a moment before she directed her attention to the men standing beside him, seeming to actually _look_ at them this time. She gave Steve what could be described only as an appreciative look-over before she turned to Tony, and her eyes lit up with delight.

"The spell has taken," she said, elation evident in her voice as she clasped her hands together. Ignoring the others, she stepped up to Tony and crowed, her voice now sing-song, "I wasn't sure it would take so soon or so well!" She reached out and trailed her fingers over Tony's face, and Tony winced from the touch. "Oh, you're already glowing! Look at you!"

She reached down and set a hand against Tony's lower abdomen, pressing in and rubbing against it.

"And already plumping up with the fruit of your bonded's seed!" she added before Tony was able to shove her hand away. She turned to Steve. "You must be such a proud Papa."

"Esmeralda, enough!" Thor yelled, more annoyed than angry, and Steve just stood beside Tony, arms folded and jaw set.

"Remove the spell," he said in a voice that would have had almost anyone quaking in their boots. Anyone except screwy goddesses from other realms.

She laughed, the sound trilling like tinkling ice. "Now, why would I do that? To what purpose? This is exactly what I meant to happen. It is what must be."

Steve just stood a little straighter, broadening his shoulders and setting his jaw. "Why?" he asked, and Esmeralda winced from his cold, flat tone.

"Well," she said and blinked, face contorted into slight confusion, "because. I've not made the acquaintance of many of your kind in my time, which is such a shame. You're such fascinating creatures, and you bond the same as those of the other realms. You just aren't as aware of it. And you—" She put her arms out in a broad and opening gesture as though to encompass both Steve and Tony. "Well, you've got the strongest bond I've ever come across — perhaps in the whole galaxy."

"So?" Steve asked.

"So?" she replied and frowned. She looked between Steve and Tony and said, "Is this…not what you wanted? All bonded couples wish to create life from their bond."

Tony folded his arms and tried not to think about what the discomfort in his pectorals implied. "Yeah, two things. First, not all couples do. Seriously, there are a ton of couples that should not even think about becoming parents. Second, clearly, you've fucked around here before, so you should realize that _this?_ " He motioned over himself. "Is pretty next to impossible."

"Evidently not completely impossible," she said and raised an eyebrow. Tony just glared at her and she rolled her eyes and added, "Such black-and-white thinkers, but _still_. Did you not have the form of a human female when the conception occurred?"

"Yeah, but I don't now."

She just blinked. "Of course not. The conception has already occurred."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Yeah, here's the issue, Einstein: You've got this parasite stuck in me, and let's face facts here, it is, technically, a parasite, but because I'm like this—" he motioned over himself again, "—there's no way to actually get this parasite out of me without, you know, gutting me like a fish."

"Oh, that's such a terrible way of looking at it," she muttered and shook her head.

"But that's what would happen. That's how it would happen," Steve said and stepped forward, dropping his arms as he tried out another threatening pose, hands balled into fists at his side. "If you let his continue — if you don't undo what you've done to him — that's what's going to happen to him. They're going to have to gut him to get this out of him, and they're not going to know the first thing of how to do it because this doesn't happen here. Fellas don't have babies. They're not made for that. Dame— _women_ are. And as I'm sure you're aware, Tony's not a woman."

She scrunched her mouth to the side, and she tapped a finger against her mouth and said, "I always forget how antiquated your thinking is on this world. I had thought maybe you would be different…" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. All right, Captain. If that is your contention, I can make it easier for him."

Tony furrowed his brow, but Steve was the one that said, " _Easier?_ No, you're not making it _easier_ , you're undoing what you did to him — what he never asked you to do."

She grimaced and shrugged her shoulders a little and said, " _That_ …I cannot do."

" _What?_ " Tony cried, and she turned her attention to him.

"Well, before the conception occurred, _of course_ I could have removed the spell! But I cannot remove it now. The deed is done. The conception has occurred. It's out of my hands." And, to prove her point, she made a dismissive wiping motion with her hands.

"I don't believe that," Steve said, and Thor stepped forward and said, "Esmeralda, please. The Man of Iron cannot—"

But she waved him off and said, "Yes, I know. The Captain explained it to me already. But you wish me to get rid of the child that grows in his womb, and I cannot do that."

" _The hell you can't_ ," Steve all but growled, and Tony put a hand on his arm as though to calm him or hold him back.

"I can't," she said with a gentle shrug, twirling her arms out and smiling as she did so. "I told you it's out of my hands."

"But you're the one that did this to him," Steve said. "You're the one that would have to undo it."

She hummed a little in amusement then said, "I cast the spell that gave him the form, but you, dear Captain, were the one to impregnate him. In that regard, _you_ were the one to do this to him, not I."

That shut Steve up for all of a second before he said, "And what if we ripped it out right now? Just got rid of what you put there?"

She hummed a little and said, "First of all, as we just established, _I_ didn't put it there, Captain. That was all your doing. Second, I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Why not?" Bruce asked, and she turned to him, her eyes flashing like she'd just realized someone else was in the room. She focused on him a moment then frowned and reached out to touch a hand to his cheek.

"Poor lost creature," she murmured. "Even I cannot help you."

Bruce winced and pulled away from her, but Thor stepped forward and said, "Why should we not do that? Why should we not attempt to save the Man of Iron?"

" _Save?_ " she asked, confused by his word-choice. "You imply there's some amount of danger to be had."

"Isn't there?" Steve asked, and she shrugged.

"Well, no more than might be had in what your kind might consider a more 'conventional' situation. Besides," she said and stepped up to Tony, going around Steve as she reached a hand out to Tony's abdomen and drew an index finger from his lower abdomen up to his heart, "these lives are connected and have been from the moment of conception. Where one ceases to exist, so shall the other."

"Wait, what?" Tony asked, some funny and nervous pang hitting him square in the chest.

She just shrugged. "It's quite simple. If you end this life that grows inside you, you will end your own life. If you allow it to blossom and flourish, well, I think that goes unsaid."

"Esmeralda, this is cruel," Thor said, but she shook her head.

"It's not cruel. Not at all. It is a fail-safe, a measure to help prevent against miscarriage early on in the gestation. The newly formed life is fragile and is at risk. To connect its life to the life of the mother guards it from any means that might prevent it from developing to term."

"No, I think I'm going to have to agree with my beefy, blonde friend here," Tony said, and she turned her attention to him. "It's cruel. It's absolutely cruel. You're saying if anything bad happens to this cluster of cells that I'm going to die. And you didn't exactly explain what happens when this goes to term. Am I suddenly going to develop a vagina? Is this thing going to go all John Hurt in _Alien_ on me?"

A look of shock and horror crossed Steve's face, and as he turned to meet Tony's gaze, Tony reached out and patted his arm. "Yeah, babe, glad you got the reference on that one."

She made another 'hmm' sound and said, "If I'm hearing you and your Captain correctly, I'm getting the sense that your greatest concern is the actual _birthing_ of the child at the end of the gestation and not the gestation itself. Like I said, I can make it easier for you."

Tony wasn't sure that's what should have been her main takeaway from what they were telling her, but he still said, "Yeah? How?"

She smiled then, though it sent a shiver down Tony's spine. She put a finger to her lips and kissed it, and horror dawned as Tony remembered what came next from that.

But before he could duck out of the way, she pressed her finger to Tony's lips, sending a wave of shock and heat through his body. He felt the world disappear around him, his body going weightless, his eyes going sightless, his hearing nothing but a strange buzzing, and the next thing he knew, he was flat on his back on the floor, and Steve was screaming, " _What did you do to him?"_ at her, and Thor was holding him back from ripping her to pieces while Bruce tried to act as intermediary.

"Steve, don't—" Tony said when he suddenly realized the voice he spoke with didn't belong to him.

Or it shouldn't have.

"Oh, boy."

He sat up as the others turned on him, Thor loosening his grasp on Steve, Esmeralda smiling in delight while the other three gawked at him in shock, surprise, and a little bit of horror. Tony sighed and looked down at himself, which, going by the breasts and the long, dark hair that fell in his face as he looked down, was maybe not the right pronoun to use.

"You did it to me again, didn't you?" he said and looked up at the spacey crackpot.

Esmeralda tittered with glee. "Oh, he makes such a pretty woman, doesn't he, Captain?"

If looks could have killed, Esmeralda would have been dead ten times over. Still, Steve turned his attention away from her and toward Tony, and he crouched down beside him and said, "Are you all right?" as he reached out and brushed his fingers against Tony's face.

"All things considered?" he said (she said?) and sighed a little. "I suppose I've been worse."

Steve just nodded and helped him (her) to his (her) feet, and Tony noticed that if there was one good thing about being turned into a woman it was that he was still the same height. There were still the same five inches between him and Steve as there had always been, even if his form was a bit more…supple than it had been a minute before.

"Esmeralda, undo this hex!" Thor bellowed, but she just shrugged.

"I suppose I can, but then we'll just be right back where we started. I can turn him back, but he'll still be with child."

"He can't be," Bruce said. "His body won't be able to handle it. He has heart problems, a slightly reduced lung capacity, liver damage from years of alcohol abuse not to mention residual effects from palladium poisoning—"

" _What_ did I tell you about mentioning any of that in front of Steve?" Tony snapped, though Steve just set that sad-eyed look on him at the reminder of his less-than-stellar health.

Esmeralda waved off Bruce's concern. "Yes, I understand that. As I'm sure your shamans or medicine men will be able to tell you, that body he now possesses is in _quite_ excellent health and should see him through the rest of his pregnancy with no issue."

"Esmeralda, you are meant to bless couples, not burden them with issue they cannot handle," Thor said.

"I have blessed them!" she cried, motioning to Tony and Steve. "They are bonded souls. They possess one of the strongest bonds I have ever made acquaintance with, and every bonded pair wishes to create life from their bond. I have allowed them that. In that womb beats the heart of new life!"

"A life that you've tied to the bearer of that life."

"Oh, only until it's born." She waved a dismissive hand at him. "Standard procedure. Don't be so dramatic, Son of Odin. You know full-well that's how it works."

"But you're forcing an unwanted pregnancy on him—" Bruce shot Tony a look. "Her?"

Tony shrugged. He was still feeling a little woozy from the changeover, and he wasn't sure he was thinking quite straight.

"I am giving them what all those bonded desire. They seek to create life from their love. Earthen males cannot do that on their own. I mean, quite obviously there are exceptions, but to these two in particular, I've helped them around their pesky biology."

"Did you even think to ask us if we wanted this?" Steve asked, sounding more like a growl than actual words.

But Esmeralda didn't back down. Instead, she stepped up into Steve's space and said, "Would you have spoken the truth if asked, Captain?"

"Are you trying to imply that I want this?"

"All bondeds do, Captain. You are no different than any of them."

She turned her attention to Tony and smiled at him, reaching out to brush her fingertips against Tony's cheek. "Perfect. So very perfect. You shall wear it well," she said and dropped her hand. "But you always do, don't you? And you glow. Even so early on, you glow, a new life growing inside you. You should feel so honored. Not many of your kind have the privilege of experiencing such a thing."

"Not sure 'privilege' is the word you're looking for," Tony said and made a face at the voice he spoke the words with. "I think 'burden' is closer to what you want."

She arched a thin eyebrow. "You believe this gift to be a burden?"

He squawked out a laugh. "Gift? Are you kidding me? This is a nightmare. Look, lady, I don't know what your issue is, but this sort of thing isn't supposed to happen, and the fact that it's happening to me is absolutely horrifying. I didn't ask for this. I don't want this. I'd rip this out of me right now if I wasn't half-convinced you're serious about me dying if I do so."

She just grinned. "But there _is_ a part of you that believes me to be telling the truth."

"About me dying? Yeah. About this being a gift? Yeah, not as much."

She just shrugged and made a 'hmm' sound but said, "You will see in time."

"What are you talking about?" Steve asked.

She turned her attention to him, her eyebrows raised in slight surprise. "You do not know?" she asked like his question confused her.

"We don't speak 'crazy,'" Tony said, and she smiled warmly, almost fondly at him.

"There is nothing insane about it," she explained. "You are bonded. You have been bonded for many an age. It is...what has always been and what will always be."

"Fuck, I am so sick of people speaking in cryptic word salad," Tony muttered.

"You will more than understand in due time," she said, and Steve moved to step in between them as she reached out to touch his face again.

"Get. Away. From. Him."

Esmeralda scrunched her nose at Steve. "So feisty. So protective." She poked Steve in his nose. "But then, you always are with your bonded, aren't you?"

"You're forcing him to bear a life quite possibly at the expense of his own because you think it's funny to play with people's emotions."

She laughed, light and merry. "Oh, no, Captain. That's not the reason. That's not the reason at all." She exhaled a light, happy breath. "But that you must learn on your own."

And then in an exploding flash of gold and lavender, she vanished, leaving the others to stare at the empty space where she had once stood. Bruce waved away the smoky haze that remained, and Steve turned to Thor and said in the most serious and business-like voice Tony had ever heard, "Is she just spouting off hyperbolic nonsense or is there any truth to what she's saying?"

Thor wouldn't meet his eyes, however, and instead fiddled with Mjolnir and bowed his head.

"Thor," Steve said, the tone dark and demanding, "report on what you know about this Esmeralda's hexes."

Thor cleared his throat, still toying with Mjolnir as he said, "The Goddess Esmeralda's hexes are unbreachable. I do remember now that she places protection upon each conception that she blesses. It is to prevent it from being undone. The health of the mother is most important to these spells. So long as the mother remains healthy, so, too, shall the child that grows in her womb."

"And so long as the fetus remains healthy and viable, the mother shall remain the same," Bruce said.

"Aye, that is the way of it," Thor replied.

"So, we're stuck," Steve said. "Tony _has_ to…" He swallowed and stole a quick glance at Tony. "Tony has to see this through to the end if he wants to live."

Thor glanced between the two and said, "I am sorry, my friend," he said, the words coming out quiet and a touch humbled. "I see no way around it. The Goddess Esmeralda will not remove the spell that binds one life to the other."

"Why not?" Bruce asked.

"Because she knows what they will try to do, and she cannot condone that. She believes that all bondeds wish to conceive and bear children. She believes it is their duty to do so. She cannot condone them—"

"Shirking their duty," Steve said, voice flatter than Tony had ever heard it.

Thor shrugged but still nodded his agreement. "That is, as I believe you say, the long and short of it. Our Man of Iron must do this or face the most dire of consequences."

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Bruce close his eyes and mutter an _Oh, god_ , and Tony fumbled for Steve's hand. " _Steve?_ " he said, his voice cracking.

Steve latched on and squeezed his hand so hard he swore his bones began to grind together, and Steve must have sensed there was something amiss, as he pulled Tony's hand up and looked at it.

"Your hands are smaller," was the only thing he could be bothered to say.

Tony just swallowed. "Steve?" he reiterated, and he met Steve's gaze and saw nothing in those beautiful blue irises but absolute anguish.

"I'm sorry, Tony," Steve said, voice wrecked. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

"It's not your fault—"

"It is my fault! If I'd been able to control myself—"

"Fuck's sake, Steve, stop blaming yourself!" Tony yelled, his voice cracking from the changed pitch. God, he hated what he sounded like as a woman. As he'd discovered the first time it had happened, he tended to get screechy when he got excited. "This is no one's fault but hers! She— She's nuts. There's no reasoning with crazy people. This was what she always intended. She thinks we're soul mates, and she thinks, as soul mates, we're supposed to be fruitful and multiply. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the reason we were so goddamned horny for each other was because it was part of the spell — to make sure this—" he motioned down at himself once more, "— happened."

They both turned to Thor for clarification, and he merely nodded a fraction.

"See?" he said and turned back to Steve. "She intended for this to happen. We didn't have a choice in the matter. So, stop fucking blaming yourself for this. I'm the one that has to actually has to let this happen to me unless I want to _die_." He put a hand over his mouth. "Good Christ," he muttered, dropping his hand away. "I can't believe those words came out of my mouth."

He looked up and met Steve's gaze again only to be greeted with not anguish but steely resolve. "All right," Steve said with a resolute nod of his head. "Then that's what we're going to do."

Tony frowned and blinked. "Wait, what? What are we going to do?"

"We're going to let this happen. It's not going to be easy, but we're going to figure it out. We're not even going to talk about the alternative. We're going to do this, and we're going to figure it out."

"Yeah?" Tony asked and cocked his head to the side, dark hair brushing his shoulder. "How?"

"Together."


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

God, he was just so fucking tired.

Steve had been watching him like a hawk ever since Esmeralda had vanished into thin air, not letting him get more than three feet away from him as he grilled Thor over any possible exceptions to Esmeralda's hexes. Thor, to his credit, was good-natured about the whole thing, answering Steve's increasingly frustrated questions with patience and good-humor, though he didn't seem to quite comprehend what the issue was.

"You are bonded," he said, an almost awed innocence to his tone. "You should be delighted. You will get to experience that which no other bonded pair such as yourselves can ever know."

"That's not the point," Steve said. "It would be different if this was something we chose — something that Tony chose. He didn't choose it. It was forced on him, and now he has to see it through to the end unless he wants to die, and that's not happening on my watch."

Thor still didn't quite seem to understand the issue, but he let it slide and merely answered Steve's next question about whether or not he had ever seen this particular hex undone.

He hadn't.

But Steve let his guard down at one point, and that's when Tony took his chance to sneak out and make his way down to his lab. The lights came on upon his arrival, though DUM-E, who normally wheeled over to him in greeting, stayed over at his charging station and merely raised his arm at Tony as though to inspect the intruder in the lab.

" _Sir, I have attempted to explain the…situation to DUM-E, but I am afraid he fails to understand_."

Tony sighed out a breath. "Not your fault, J," he said and sat down at his worktable. "Wish you could explain the situation to me."

" _I would, Sir, but I believe I understand it far less than you do_."

He snorted a laugh and logged into his computer. "The blind leading the blind," he muttered and folded his arms as he sat back in his chair. He winced at the change in terrain and adjusted his arms so that they rested just beneath his breasts and said, "Say, J? Maybe we might want to look into—"

" _If this is to be a long-term thing, I think it best to purchase the appropriate wear for the duration_."

"Yeah, maybe order me up a couple bras?"

He'd had to borrow one of Natasha's the last time, but his figure was a little broader than hers, and he'd ended up stretching the band far beyond what Natasha could use when he gave it back. Pepper was a bit closer to his build, but beyond the fact that he wasn't keen on asking his ex-girlfriend for one of her bras, she had been on the other side of the country at the time and, to this day, didn't know that had even happened to him.

" _I'll need your measurements, Sir_."

"Can't you eyeball it?"

" _As I understand it, an ill-fitting bra is most uncomfortable and may do more harm than good_."

Tony groaned and sat up, whipping his t-shirt off to leave his bare chest exposed. He stood up and shucked his pants and briefs and put his arms out straight.

"Might as well do a full scan on me, J. See if you can find any other fun surprises."

He stood patiently and waited for JARVIS to complete his scan, and once he had, he threw his clothes back on and sat down at the computer to read over the results just as JARVIS was announcing them.

" _My readings suggest, Sir, that you are at-current a thirty-six-year-old female approximately five-feet-eight-inches tall and weighing one hundred forty-eight pounds_."

"That's all muscle weight, right, J? Also, five- _nine_ , not five-eight. And thirty-six? She de-aged me, too?"

" _You have the appearance of a thirty-six-year-old, Sir. For weight, I would have to run a body mass index scan_."

"Don't bother. Don't really care."

" _My readings also indicate that the fetus is at approximately ten weeks' gestation_."

"Ten weeks? That's practically the end of the first trimester. Did all that shit really go down over two months ago?" He shook his head and pressed his face into his hands. "Jesus," he muttered. "How is this my fucking life?"

" _I should think it began when you and the Captain—_ "

"I know how it happened, J!" he shouted, looking up at the ceiling as he did so. Oh, Christ, he was starting to act like Steve now.

"Whatever," he muttered and sat back against the chair. "Order up some bras in the right size. It does feel a little…unprotected without one."

" _At once, Sir_."

He began to pull up some files on projects he'd been working on for the other Avengers. "So, I presume you heard the good news?"

" _If you mean the impending birth of your first child, then congratulations, Sir. If you mean the less-than-forthright means with which the Goddess Esmeralda put you and the Captain into this situation, then I express my most sincere condolences at her trickery. If you mean what could potentially be a shortened lifespan due to the enjoining of your life with that of the fetus gestating within you, then I express my deepest regrets._ "

"Way to have your bases covered, J. And yeah, with that last one, not taking any chances on this one. Think of it like the palladium poisoning to the nth degree. We're at ten weeks now, which means we've got about twenty-six to thirty weeks to get through, and I want to make sure everything is as it should be just in case…"

" _While I do not believe there will be anything to worry about, if you wish to ensure that everything will remain as it currently is in the event of your untimely demise, your Last Will and Testament will have to be amended. And there's the matter of the trust_."

"I have projects to finish, and I want to make sure they're all taken care of. Pepper, Rhodey, the Avengers…Steve. I need to make sure they're all taken care of. I don't need the board swooping in and taking control over everything. They'll cut the team right off, and now that SHIELD-slash-Hydra is at the bottom of the Potomac, I'm the only one funding them. There's still a lot of rats out there, and we know Loki's scepter got lost in the shuffle along with a lot of other things that should have been under better lock and key. Steve won't rest until all that stuff's back in the right hands."

" _His, Sir?_ "

Tony grinned and began running specs for something he'd been working on for Natasha. "He'll never admit it, but yeah, he's about the only person he trusts with that stuff."

" _If I may, Sir, I believe the Captain extends his trust to all of his teammates, including you."_

"Good to know, J-man."

" _I've been informed that Agents Barton and Romanoff have returned to the tower_."

"Wilson, too? Didn't he go with them?"

" _He did, but it appears he has a prior commitment he wished to attend to."_

Tony snorted a laugh. "Date?"

There was an element of amusement in JARVIS's tone as he said, " _It would seem so, Sir._ "

"Well, good for him. No one else with Barton and Natasha?"

" _I am afraid not, Sir_."

"False lead or they lost track of him. Well, Steve'll be in a pisser of a mood now."

" _If I may, Sir. While the Captain wishes for the safe return of his former ally and expresses regret over the unfortunate occurrences of his experience, I believe his concern over you eclipses all_."

"Meaning?"

" _While he will no doubt be upset to learn that the former Sergeant Barnes has yet again evaded rescue, his most pressing concern at current is with your health and welfare. I should think your jealousies over the former Sergeant Barnes are, at best, unfounded_."

"Jealous? Who says I'm jealous over Barnes? Just 'cause Steve drops everything at the mere mention of his name—"

" _He has tasked Sam Wilson with the tracking down of leads. He has not himself gone off on any, instead preferring to attend to Avengers business as well as the courtship of his bonded_."

Tony scowled. "Could we not use that phraseology? I'm going to get hives just thinking about it."

" _Of course, Sir, but I must again remind you. If the Goddess Esmeralda is correct, Captain Rogers's bonded is you, not Sergeant Barnes. And Captain Rogers has never expressed the same interest in Sergeant Barnes as he has you_."

Tony pushed away from the computer and rolled over to another table to grab his soldering iron. "Yeah, I know that. Barnes is his buddy. Nothing more. I just feel a little…"

" _If I may, Sir. The unusual concentration of hormones in your system may be rendering you—_ "

"If you say I'm getting emotional over nothing, J, I'll dismantle you and give you to the government to put back together!"

" _A most terrifying prospect, Sir_."

Tony grabbed the arrows he'd been working on the other day and went about configuring a slight tweak in their aerodynamic capabilities.

"Glad we're on the same page here, J," he said and stopped short when he realized he'd jumped from working on one project to another without a thought. He set the soldering iron down and sat back, drumming his fingers on the tabletop as he tried to figure out how that even could have happened. He glanced down to his hand and watched the way the gold engagement band he wore on his right ring finger bounced and wiggled and turned with each tap of the finger, and he stopped drumming his fingers and picked his hand up. He frowned and pulled the ring off his finger — for as loose as it was, it was actually kind of amazing it hadn't fallen off at any point beforehand — and inspected it a moment. He tried it on his middle finger, then index finger, and finally his thumb to no avail. The ring was too big for his suddenly slender fingers, and he frowned some more and twirled the band between his thumb and forefinger, watching the way the gold caught the light of the lab.

"J?" he said with a sigh then tucked the ring away in the drawer for safekeeping. "Remind me to put that somewhere safer for the duration."

" _I'll make certain to note it on my agenda_ ," JARVIS said.

"Sass-bot," he muttered and picked up the iron again, forgetting that he'd even stopped to question why he had the iron to begin with.

"So, this is what Steve's upset about."

Tony startled and dropped the soldering iron on the table. He looked up to see Natasha strolling oh-so-casually into the lab, dressed like she'd just come straight out of the field.

"How did you…?" he mused but didn't finish the thought. Seriously, though, how did she sneak in so easily?

She made her way over to him and leaned against the table, folding her arms as she looked at him but didn't say anything, and Tony fumbled a little under her gaze but kept his cool as he grabbed his soldering iron again.

"And for the record, this isn't the only thing he's upset about."

But Natasha didn't probe him or ask him to clarify. She simply asked, "How are you?"

"I don't know. I honestly couldn't tell you." He sat back and tried to fold his arms again and grumbled as he remembered he had to position his arms differently if he didn't want to…squash himself. "How do you deal with this?" he muttered, and she shrugged.

"Second-nature. You don't really think about it."

"Yeah, I'd like to see you deal with a dick this easily," he muttered. "Are they always so tender?"

She shrugged again. "Depends on what time of month it is. In your case, though…"

"Yeah, you don't need to explain anything more. I got it."

"So, there's no way out of this? You're forced to—"

"Bear a child? Yeah, unless Thor's full of shit and her hexes aren't that powerful. The fact that I'm currently sitting here with tits and a vagina, however, seems to say otherwise."

Natasha muttered something under her breath, and it sounded like it was in Russian, which Tony couldn't make out. He'd ask JARVIS to run it again later.

"Why you?" she asked in English this time.

"Because she's a fucking lunatic and thinks Steve and I are soul mates, and she thinks that because we're soul mates, we're supposed to want this. According to Blondie, this is kind of her MO. Nothing really out of the ordinary about it. Pulls this shit all the time, just not normally on humans."

Natasha just reached out and ran a gentle hand over his head, stroking it down his hair to his shoulders. "It'll be OK, _solnyshko_."

Tony snorted a laugh even as he leaned into her touch. "Really? They told you what happens if I don't, for whatever reason, carry this… _thing_ …to term, right?"

She merely pursed her lips and raised an eyebrow at him. "It's what she thinks happens."

Tony just smiled and nodded a little, appreciating the gesture. Even after all this time since New York, it was weird having people worried about him and concerned for him — people that weren't named James Rhodes or Pepper Potts. All the same, it was also kind of nice.

"How are those new bites coming along?"

Tony pulled away and rolled over to where he'd left them yesterday. "Still a prototype," he said and snatched them up. "I'm thinking it might make more sense to embed them in your suit," he added as he rolled back over to her and held them out. She took one in her hand and turned it over, inspecting it, though he suspected she was merely looking at the aesthetics and not the actual technology of it.

"Can I test them out?"

"Yeah. I'd rather you test them before you take them out in the field."

"Who should I test them on?"

"If that nutcase ever comes back, I'd say her. Until then…how mouthy has Barton been lately?"

She twitched a small smile at him. "I don't think I should test them out on teammates."

"Just don't tell Steve about it," he said with a shrug. When she didn't seem all that impressed by his suggestion, he added, "Fine. Any Hydra goons within reach?"

She was about to respond when Barton marched in, bow in hand and scowl on his face.

"Stark! I need a fix!" he called out, and Natasha rolled her eyes as Barton met up with them. He dropped the bow on the table in front of Tony, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that Tony was now quite noticeably in possession of two 'X' chromosomes. "Something went screwy and got fried when I tried to use it."

Tony picked up the bow and looked it over. "Why does it look like a tank ran over it?"

"Not a tank," Natasha said. "A half-track."

Tony raised an eyebrow at both of them.

"Yeah, we may have run into some of our buddies while on the lookout for Cap's pal," Barton said. "You have that prototype you've been working on? We're headed right back out."

Tony stood up and went over to the other counter where he'd placed the prototype bow for Barton he was almost happy with but not quite. "Try not to drop this one on the ground, too," he said and handed it over before he went over to the platform where he kept the newest Iron Man suit.

"Hey, what do you think you're doing?" Barton asked.

"Said we're heading back out," he said and tried to call the suit to him. When it didn't respond, he frowned and looked down at his forearm. He felt for the sensors he'd embedded under his skin and found to his surprise that there were none.

"Oh, great," he muttered and flexed his hand a few times. Steve was right. His hands were smaller, more delicate. "Where the hell did they go?"

"Um… You might want to run your involvement by Cap," Barton said, and Tony turned on him.

"Excuse me?"

Barton just scratched the back of his head and made a face, but Natasha pushed toward him and said, "Tony, no one's doubting your ability to be Iron Man. But I'm not sure Steve would be able to concentrate if he was spending half the battle worrying about you."

He loved that even as a woman, he was still a little taller than Natasha. He didn't often get to use his height to his advantage.

"Yeah?" he asked, hands on his hips as he leaned over her. "Well, tough shit. The Iron Man suit has more safeguards and protections built into it than all of your armors put together. I'm safer in the suit than out of it. That witch may have taken away whatever choices I can make over my own goddamned body, but she is not taking Iron Man away from me."

"You really want it getting out that Tony Stark is now a woman?" Barton asked.

"There's a built-in voice modulator. I haven't really used it since the beginning. All I have to do is keep the faceplate down and turn the modulator on and no one will know."

"Think of everything, don't you?" Natasha mused, and he shrugged.

"Steve may be the boss, but I'm the one that pays for everything and builds everything and makes you guys look cool. Always have to be thinking about this sort of stuff."

"Hey, is it cold in here?"

Both Tony and Natasha turned to Barton, who was busy staring at Tony's breasts. Tony glanced down and saw his nipples were erect, poking against the thin fabric of the shirt.

"Grow up," he muttered, and Barton put his hands up.

"Hey, just trying to lighten the mood."

Tony shot a sour look at Natasha and nodded his head at Barton. "Is this what we're like?"

"Not all of you," she said with a flat smile, but Tony could tell by her tone that she'd been on the receiving end of such comments over the years. She directed a knowing look at Barton and said, "There is a time and a place."

"Hey, our teammate was just Rule 63'd. Again. I think I'm allowed to point out how crazy that is."

"Not like that you're not."

"What, are you going to blab to Cap about me?"

"Blab about what?"

Tony and the Spy Twins turned to see Steve, already dressed and ready to depart, strolling into the lab. Concentration was etched over his face as he set his gaze on Tony and said, "Tony, we—"

"I know," Tony said and went over to one of the older models that weren't sensor operated. "Just give me a sec—"

Steve stopped beside him as Tony fastened small bracelets to each wrist. "What are you doing?"

"The changeover seems to have done away with the sensors I'd embedded in me, so I can't call the suit to me that way. I have to pull one of the older ones out of mothballs—"

"Why?"

Tony spun on his heel, fire in his belly. " _Excuse me?_ "

Steve had a pinched look on his face. "Tony, I just think maybe—"

"Don't, Steve!" he cried, not letting Steve get his thought out. "Don't you dare do this to me. Don't you dare try to take this away from me, too!"

"Hey, whoa!" Steve said and put his hands out to placate him. "Tony, calm down—"

"Calm down? Don't fucking patronize me. I'm not an invalid, Steve. I can be Iron Man."

"Tony, I know you can be Iron Man," Steve said and moved to follow him as he went back over to the suit. "But I can't trust that you won't get hurt—"

"Hurt? Fuck you, Steve. I'm more protected in this tin can than you are with that flimsy suit."

"Tony, honey, listen—"

"Don't. Don't fucking _honey, listen_ me! I've been turned into a woman and forced into a pregnancy that, if I try to terminate, will kill me because some vestal virgin sniffed out that I have a bondmate of some kind and she just loves to fuck with people that have bondmates, which is a concept I think is completely bullshit. I don't have a choice in this matter. Don't fucking take away my choice to be Iron Man, too."

Steve reached out and put his hands on his smaller, narrower shoulders. "OK," he said, his voice quiet and soothing. "OK. I didn't mean to imply…" He exhaled a breath and dropped his head a moment before picking it back up to look at Tony. "I'm not going to tell you what to do. You want to come along with us? Suit up."

Tony huffed a bit and folded his arms, again, making sure to adjust his arms properly not to… bother himself. God, how did women deal with this?

"Oh, well, thank you so much for your permission to do whatever I want."

"Tony, that's not what I—"

"Whatever." He broke Steve's hold on him and moved over to one of the suits. "OK, J," he called out. "How's the Mark, oh, XVII looking these days?"

He didn't even notice the others leave the lab as JARVIS read out the specifications for the adequacy of the Mark XVII for their upcoming mission, and he reached into a storage drawer and pulled out a set of under armor, only realizing as he went to pull his shirt off that Natasha was still in the room with him. He turned to her, hands at the hem of his shirt to pull it off, and said, "Yeah, no peep-shows."

But Natasha just looked at him and said, "He didn't mean it that way."

He sighed a little. "I know. I don't know why I snapped."

There was a twitch of a smile on her lips, and her eyes crinkled just the slightest as she said, "Hormones," then nodded her head at the suit. "Get dressed. See you at the 'jet."

~*~

The hunt for Hydra cells took them to somewhere in the former Soviet bloc, which produced three things: a formerly safeguarded remnant of Chitauri tech, a bunch of Hydra lackeys that were left to take the fall while the big-guns got away—

And an injured Steve.

He'd been caught unawares while he stopped to take stock of the situation, ending up with a shot to the arm and a shot to the belly. Tony heard the grunt of pain over the comm line, but when he pressed for information, Steve told him to forget about it and concentrate on his own objective of securing the warehouse, and against his better judgment, Tony forgot about looking for Steve to make sure he was OK and went about the not-exactly-arduous task of taking care of any Hydra rats that were trying to jump ship. He ended up in a slight firefight with one of them that wasn't as keen on giving up the battle as some of the others were, but he was able to duck out of the way of anything that could potentially damage the armor — and therefore him — and instead was able to finally disarm the guy with a well-aimed repulsor blast.

But not before the yutz got in a good shot at his hip.

Tony grunted and muttered a quiet, " _Shit_ ," which, of course, had to be heard by Steve, who, attempting to mask his own pain said, " _Iron Man, report status_."

"I'm fine, Steve," he said, not even attempting the professional courtesy they usually kept to over the comms. For some reason, that blast really fucking smarted, and he wanted to hop out of the suit and grab some of that nice, white snow to use as a compress against his hip, but there were still a few goons hiding around, and no one needed to see a female Tony Stark exiting the Iron Man armor.

Another muffled groan from Steve. " _Are you sure?_ "

"Steve, are you OK? You sound pretty beat up there, old man."

" _I'm fine_ ," he snapped. " _Did you secure the perimeter?_ "

Tony rolled his eyes and fired off a repulsor blast at another goon that was trying to make a break for it. "Yeah, yeah, we're good."

" _Then why can I still hear the repulsors firing?_ "

Another shot fired off at someone trying to take off on a motorcycle. "Because clearly you're delirious, and you're hearing things in your delirium."

" _Tony!_ "

" _Hey, question_ ," Barton cut in. " _How come Stark sounds like boy-Stark face-to-face but girl-Stark over the comms?_ "

"Really?  That's your concern?"

There was a grunt and then the thwop of Barton firing off an arrow. " _It's disconcerting_ ," he said.

"Whatever," Tony muttered. "Any stragglers?"

" _Eh, a few here and there_."

" _Guys, is this a Code Green?_ " Bruce asked over the line, and Tony took off to the sky to get a bird's-eye-view of the locale to see if there was anything he was missing.

" _Depends on whether or not you want to join the fun_ ," Barton said.

"Think we're good, Jolly Green," Tony said. "If someone wants to collect our injured leader, however, and take him on back to the 'jet for Banner to patch up, though, I'd appreciate it."

" _Tony, I'm fine_ ," Steve cut in, sounding like he was anything but.

"Yeah, no, you're not," Tony said and swooped over the compound, aiming a few more blasts at the last remnants of Hydra agents. "Get him out of there and get this place cleaned out."

" _Aw, man!_ " Barton whined. " _Can't we just blow it?_ "

"After we clean it," Tony said just as a half-track barreled in from out of nowhere and began to make the journey away from the bunker. He swore under his breath and began to follow it away from the camp. "We don't need this shit falling into anyone else's hands."

" _Yeah, if we blow it, it'll cease to exist_ ," Barton said followed by another 'thwop.' " _And who said you get to give the orders? I thought that's your boyfriend's job?_ "

Tony followed after the half-track and waited for Steve to make some sort of comment about saving the jokes for later, but nothing came, and Tony called out in a slight panic, "Who's closest to Steve?"

" _Why? Where are you?_ "

"Just someone get him on the 'jet!" he yelled and took off after the half-track. When he got close enough, he hovered and tried to take it out with the chest R/T, but one of the imbeciles in the vehicle spotted him and aimed a shot at him, and all the power cut out of the suit.

" _F_ _uck!_ " he yelled, encased in complete darkness, as he began to fall from the sky. He couldn't move anything, couldn't see anything, and the most he could do was calculations in his head as he tried to figure out how far up he was, plus the rate of acceleration, to figure out how hard and how fast he would hit the—

He landed with a hard and painful thump that knocked the wind out of him, and he couldn't even maneuver the arms to trigger the manual-release latches. He could still feel his extremities, which was a good thing, though he'd probably be achy as fuck for the next couple days. He sighed out loud and said, "Well, hopefully they don't just leave me here."

He wasn't sure how long he lay there before someone hit the manual release on the faceplate, and he squinted at the bright assault of sunlight to his eyes before Barton's shit-eating grin came into view.

"Jeez, Stark. You know, I realize women in your condition are prone to exhaustion—"

"Fuck off, Barton, and get me out of here."

"Sure you want to chance it?"

"I'm stuck in a close-fitting metal coffin with absolutely no power. Get me out of here."

"All right," Barton said with a sigh and leaned over Tony to fiddle with the releases. The suit opened up, and Tony sat up, breathing in fresh air and suddenly realizing that he'd kind of been short on oxygen.

"Thanks," he said and let Barton help him up. He grimaced as he set weight on his left leg, and Barton noticed and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Tell Steve, and I'll kill you."

"Cap is in no place to talk right about now."

Tony remembered what had happened to Steve before he'd fallen from the sky, and he frowned at Barton and said, "Is he OK?"

Barton shrugged. "He'll live." He nodded at the powerless Iron Man suit. "What are we supposed to do with that?"

"Got knocked out by an EMP, I think. Have to get it back to the 'jet and get it back online."

He stretched his back out some then bent down to grab the suit by the legs, and Barton made a hesitant sound and said, "Uh, Stark? Maybe you shouldn't do that?"

"What? Why?"

"And from how far a height did you fall?"

He rolled his eyes. "You fuss more than Steve."

Barton shrugged and folded his arms while Tony grabbed onto the ankles of the suit and began to pull.

"Yeah, well, I heard about your little hex. Just don't think it's something you should be doing. Cap finds out I let you do it, yeah, well, let's just say there'll be no living with him for a while."

He just grunted and started trying to drag the suit, which, as it turned out, was a little heavier than he remembered it being. "The fuck?" he muttered as he dropped the legs and looked at his arms.

Barton just patted him on the back. "You don't have the same upper-body strength that you used to. Sorry. You can probably swing your hips better than I can if it's any consolation."

"Fuck off, Barton," he muttered as Barton reached down and snagged the downed armor.

"Jesus, Stark," he said with a loud groan and dropped it with a 'thud.' "How the fuck heavy is this thing?"

"Uh, it's weaponized armor designed to withstand, I don't know, alien hordes. It's not made out of aluminum."

"Hey, yeah," Barton said, completely ignoring him and presumably talking into the comm. "Someone want to send Thor out here? I need a pickup... Huh?... Mouthy as ever. He's fine."

"Once again, Barton. Fuck off. Wait— Is that—? How's Steve?"

He sighed and relayed the question over the comm, and Tony waited until Barton nodded and said, "Uh huh," before he yelled out, his voice going screechy the way he hated it, " _Well?_ "

"He's not dead," was Barton's reply, and with the knowledge that Thor would be there to grab the suit momentarily, he took off toward the 'jet, Barton yelling, "Stark! Stark, wait!" behind him. He passed Thor on the way back to the jet, and he ran up the ramp and up to the table where Steve lay sprawled out, stripped down to the waist, Bruce tending to his wounds.

"How is he?" he asked without preamble. "Is he OK?" His arm was wrapped with gauze, a rust- red splotch of blood visible on it, and Bruce was tending to the wound in his stomach, applying gauze pads while Natasha ran an intravenous line.

"I'm fine, Tony," Steve said, a little slurry, as Tony put a gentle hand to his face and brushed his thumb over Steve's bottom lip.

"The hell you're fine," he snapped and looked down to Steve's bloodied gut. "Bruce?"

"He's going to be OK, Tony," Bruce said, sounding like his patience was wearing thin.

"You know how Steve'll keep going until he passes out from blood loss," Natasha said, giving Steve what Tony could only interpret as her 'you're an idiot' face.

"Had to contain the threat," Steve said. "Had to make sure they didn't make off with the goods."

"Not at the expense of getting yourself killed," Natasha said, a slight tinge of anger to her voice.

"Got the serum," Steve said, eyes closed and voice strained. "Hasn't failed me yet."

"Yeah?" Tony said, suddenly and maybe irrationally annoyed with him. "Well, that's no excuse for trying to push it to its limits. What the hell were you thinking, Steve?" He looked up at Natasha and Bruce. "How far gone was he, really?"

Natasha looked at him point-blank. "Had he kept going? Two more minutes 'til he passed out. Maybe."

Tony glanced down Steve's body and noticed how the front of his uniform pants was soaked with something dark.

"Goddamn it, Steve!" he said, turning back to face his pale and half-conscious lover. "What the hell were you thinking? You can't _do this_ , Steve. You cannot keep doing this. In fact, I forbid you from doing it ever again. You get wounded, you pull yourself the fuck out of the field that second, you hear me? You do not keep pushing yourself. You do not fucking _bleed_ all over yourself."

"It wasn't so much the initial hit as the fight he got into afterward," Natasha added, and Tony groaned and rolled his eyes.

"See, Steve? _This._ _This_ is what I'm talking about! I know you kinda get off on it, but you've got to stop this bullshit — this heading headlong into disaster bullshit. People are going to start to think you're suicidal, Steve."

"'m fine, Tony," he murmured, his head lolled to the side.

"You can't even open your eyes and look at me."

"Why do you sound so funny?"

He stifled a groan and rolled his eyes. "Because I'm a girl, Steve. Remember? I got turned into a woman, one that's inexplicably pregnant with _your_ child, so I'll thank you not to go off and get yourself killed before this whole thing—" He waved his hands over his body like he was demonstrating…something. "Ends."

Steve cracked his eyes open and squinted up at Tony, and he tilted his head just so and frowned a little. "Tony?"

"You're kidding me, right?"

"He should probably go to a hospital," Bruce said.

"'m fine," Steve muttered again and, unsurprisingly, tried to sit up.

"Yeah, don't think so, Atlas," Tony said and pushed him back down by his shoulders. "You stay on that fucking bed until you're ready to come to your senses."

"That'll never happen," Barton said as he pushed in between where Natasha and Bruce stood. Thor brought up the rear and dropped the Iron Man suit with a loud thunk before he met up with the rest of them. "See?" Barton crowed. "Told you he wasn't dead."

"Yeah? I'll kill him myself if he ever pulls this shit again."

"Don't have a leg to stand on, Stark." He turned his attention to Steve. "Your better half over here got hit by an EMP and got knocked out of the sky. Probably fell a good hundred feet. In a dead tin can."

Steve's eyes opened a little wider, and he frowned at Tony. " _Tony_ —"

"Nope!" Tony said. "Don't _Tony_ me! You don't get to do that. Not when half your blood is currently soaked into your pants. Nope, you lost all right to lecture me about my choices when you chose to do shit like this."

Steve frowned a little more, and Tony watched as he inched his hand out, his fingers stretching, and reached for Tony's abdomen. Knowing what sappy sort of shit he was about to pull, Tony backed away from the bed.

"Oh, no! No, you don't! Not until you learn not to pull this kind of shit."

"You never want him to touch you again?" Bruce asked with a sly smile.

"Steven," Thor said and put a hand on Steve's good arm, directing Steve's attention to him, "you do yourself no favors stretching yourself to these limits. You must also remember that you have a child that grows in the womb of your bonded, whose welfare you now must consider."

"Yeah, Dream-date Ken? It's not a child so much as a thing about this big—" Tony held his fingers a little over an inch apart, "—that is _literally_ surviving by leeching off of me."

Thor smiled. "But it is the fruit of your union, however unconventional the method of conception was. It is truly something miraculous and blessed, for there are many beings of the realms that consider such an event to be both beautiful and sacred."

The entire congregation went silent at that, not out of reverence for Thor's words but more because it seemed none of them really knew what to say to it.

Until Barton lightened the mood somewhat by focusing on the least...awkward portion of it. "Happened when Stark was a woman. Think it was pretty damned conventional."

"Nobody asked your opinion, Katniss," Tony said with a moody pout and folded arms, and Barton looked to the rest of the group.

"Is it me, or is he even cattier than usual?"

"Leave him alone, Clint," Natasha said. "This whole thing can't be easy for him." She nodded at Steve. "Or him, for that matter."

But Steve, conveniently, had seemingly passed out, his eyes closed and his mouth open and slack. Tony pursed his lips and reached out to poke him in the pectoral, petulant and annoyed, and Natasha reached out and pulled his hand away and said, "Go sit down, Stark."

Barton had already moved to the front to take the controls, so Tony sat down to the side and huffed a bit, switching between eyeing his downed suit with disdain and eyeing Steve with annoyance. No, it wasn't the suit's fault it had failed him, and he thought back to the fall and how hard he'd hit the ground, and he glanced down at his abdomen and said without thinking, "Either you're still OK or that witch was full of shit." And then he realized what he was doing, and he rolled his eyes and shook his head and folded his arm— _goddamn it!_ How did women deal with this?

"Like I said, Stark," Natasha said as she sat down next to him. "Something you kind of just know how to deal with."

"Whatever," he muttered. He nodded his head at Steve and said, "He's not going to die, right?"

She just smiled a little, soft, and maybe even a little fond. "No, Shellhead. He'll be fine."

"Good, because I'm not sure I really got through to him before."

She put her hand on his forearm and gave it a gentle squeeze. "You knew what he was like when you started this."

"Yeah, in theory, sure. It's a little different in practice. You know, when he's just there — just as Captain America — you think, 'Wow! I can't believe how awesome it is that this guy just rushes headlong into danger without blinking. God, he's so cool!' But when you actually care about the stupid bastard, it's less 'cool' and more, 'Can my heart take watching him pull this stupid shit again?'"

He went quiet a moment and pondered something. "Guess maybe Pepper had a point."

Natasha nodded but didn't say anything.

"That was one of her issues— Well, outside of me being just the absolute worst boyfriend in the world—"

Natasha shook her head. "You weren't, Tony. Don't say that, and don't ever let Steve hear you say that."

"Well, I wasn't boyfriend-of-the-year material, either. But I know that was one of her problems. She was afraid I was going to die, and she couldn't handle that." He shrugged. "Whatever, it happens."

Natasha tilted her head in thought. "I don't think that's the only reason it didn't work out."

"No, I already said it was mostly because I was a shitty boyfriend—"

"You say that again, and I'll tell Steve," Natasha said, a smile on her lips. But then she went serious again and said, "Not everyone can handle that kind of pressure. At the same time, I don't think it's fair to expect anyone to, either. We're in a tough business. Not everyone gets to come home from saving the world."

"Are you trying to tell me something?"

"No," she said and stole a glance at Steve before she turned back and gave his knee a playful slap. "Just try to stick around a little longer. For Steve's sake, at least."

He shrugged. "I'll try," he muttered, and Natasha stood up.

"Oh, you know, logically I know you're still our Shellhead, but it's kind of funny hearing you talk about yourself being a 'boyfriend' with that voice and that, uh, body."

She smiled in what counted as 'mirth' for the Black Widow then went off to join Bruce to talk about…something, and Tony rolled his eyes because he might have the voice of a woman and the body of a woman…and he might have been pregnant…but damn it, he was still a man, he still considered himself Steve's fiancé with only one 'E,' and yes, he'd been a shitty boyfriend in the past, and no amount of Natasha telling him he hadn't been would change that.

He pursed his lips and looked over at Steve laying flat on the table, and he sighed and got up again and went over to the bastard. There were no chairs beside the table, so Tony settled for leaning against it, and he put his hand to Steve's forehead and ran light fingers through his hair and said, "Goddamn it, Steve. What the hell am I going to do with you?"

It was pretty cool at first — being with 'Captain America' — and he wasn't kidding when he said it was awe-inspiring watching him rush headlong into danger. Just the fact that he was really Captain America, the hero he'd grown up with (and been compared to, but that was a tangent for another time) and had been inspired by and had wanted to make proud.

The hero worship hadn't really survived adolescence, though, and by the time Tony had met the man for real when he was going on forty-two, all that was really left for him was contempt. Contempt for the fact that Howard had seemingly cared more for his dead friend than he had for his own son; contempt for the fact that he was expected to deal with this walking anachronism like he actually had a valid viewpoint; contempt for the fact that he had feet made of clay.

It was the Battle of New York that had cast his one-time hero in a new light, and maybe he really was as valiant and inspiring as the propaganda — and Howard — had made him out to be. They'd parted the battle as comrades, and when Steve had come to live in the tower with the rest of the misfits, they'd forged a fragile friendship that became something more and something deeper as they bonded over their shared lots in life: mainly, having been heavily influenced by Howard Stark and having been cast into very public roles that neither one truly desired.

But there was more to it than that. They had fun needling each other and challenging each other, and Tony liked to show off and Steve liked to be showed-off to. Tony liked food, and Steve liked to eat, so Tony would take him to whatever high-end eatery or greasy spoon was attracting his gullet that day, sometimes even settling for those damned hot dog carts, and he really didn't want to know what was in those, but, god help him, sometimes those damned things hit the spot.

(Having once had the life kissed out of him by an alternate universe Cap also didn't exactly hurt matters, either.)

Bruce was someone he could talk science to, but Steve was just someone he could talk to. He didn't always agree with Steve, but he was fascinated by his perspective — even, sometimes, if just from the point of view of trying to prove him wrong. Somewhere along the way, their dinner dates and lunch dates and coffee dates and bullshit sessions down in the lab had turned into something deeper, and he would always remember the first time they'd gone into battle — when that whole damned thing with Killian and the Mandarin had happened — that Tony's heart had jumped into his throat at one of Steve's more stupid stunts.

It was at that moment that he knew he was in much deeper than he had ever thought he would be. Steve's moves had been heroic and amazing and thrilling to watch up to that point. From that moment on, Tony could only pray to some higher power he didn't believe in that he wouldn't end up a Steve-shaped splat on the ground one of these days.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Steve; he did. But he knew the risks, and he ran the variables, and while Steve worried about his teammates and urged them not to take any unnecessary risks, he was lax with his own safety to the point that every single person on the team as well as Wilson had called him out on his ridiculous hypocrisy. And what did Steve do when confronted with it?

The son-of-a-bitch laughed.

Not an outright belly laugh, but a snorted chortle with a look that said, _Yeah, and don't expect me to change any time soon_. Steve didn't give a shit about his own life — and there were times in the past that Tony wondered if there was a deeper and more nefarious root cause of that — but had never expected his team to make the same choices.

Steve's lax attitude about his own safety worried him on his best day, but now with this…issue…of his, he was downright terrified. This was so far off the spectrum of life experiences that he didn't even know where to begin to process it, but the main thing keeping him sane was that Steve was right there alongside him. Changed into a woman, impregnated, forced to carry a fetus to term: the fact that he had chosen none of this was downright terrifying, and not that he didn't appreciate having the others there to support him — he did, god did he — but having Steve there beside him meant more than anything. Not just because it was Steve's child (though he suspected that was a large part of it) but because it was Steve and because he'd kind of promised Steve 'forever' a few months ago, and much as he trusted and appreciated the others being there for him, he trusted and appreciated and _loved_ Steve that much more.

He wasn't sure that he could do this without him.

He bent down and pressed a kiss to Steve's forehead, and he sighed a little and said, "Old man, you're going to be the death of me one of these days."

Steve, surprisingly, did not wake from his slumber just to argue with him.


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

The serum had begun to work its magic by the time they arrived back in New York, and Tony didn't feel bad about shaking Steve's shoulder and urging him to wake up because no one was carrying his ass off the jet. Steve was groggy and grumbled as he sat up, and Bruce disconnected the intravenous lines and said he would be OK and just needed to take it easy for a while, and Tony rolled his eyes and said, "You know who you're talking to, right?"

"Unfortunately," Bruce muttered and pulled the stick out of Steve's skin. He stuck a cotton ball and a band-aid over it, and Steve stumbled a little as he stood up from the bed, but Tony was right there beside him to steady him, and Steve stared down at him a moment before he smiled stupidly and said, "Hey."

Tony glanced to Bruce. "What the hell did you have him on?"

Bruce shrugged. "The usual," he replied, and Tony figured he'd ask Natasha later what 'the usual' was because she probably knew better than any of them.

"How are you?" Steve asked, and Tony rolled his eyes as he helped him down the gate and onto the landing pad.

"Fine, but I didn't have a hole in my gut the size of Texas."

"It wasn't that bad."

"Wasn't it?" He led him over to the elevator, and Barton called out to him from the 'jet, "Hey, you want us to cart the armor off or you want to leave it here?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he muttered.

"What do you think?" he called back, and Barton turned in another direction and said, "Don't worry about it, Thor. Stark said to leave it here."

"The hell I did! Get it down to my lab. I'll worry about fixing it later. It's probably fine now. Just needs a reboot."

"Why, what happened to it?" Steve asked as he hit the button for the elevator.

"Took a hit. It's OK."

Steve pulled away from Tony's embrace, and, frowning, he cupped his face in his hands, turning his head from side-to-side as he looked for injuries.

"Steve, I'm fine," he said and didn't even hide the fact that he was rolling his eyes.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm still walking around, aren't I? Still feeling peachy—"

He put his hand to his abdomen as a wave of nausea overcame him, and he grimaced and swallowed and added, "I mean, aside from the wanting to throw up all the time."

Steve stroked his hands over Tony's face and murmured a soft, "I'm sorry," and Tony shook his head and said, " _Stop_ apologizing!"

"But it's my fault—"

"I don't care, Steve! I don't care if it's your fault I got knocked up." He groaned and shivered a little. "God, I can't believe I just uttered those words. But I don't care, Steve. I get it. I understand that you feel bad that you knocked me up, but saying you're sorry isn't going to change the fact." He jabbed a finger in Steve's sternum and added, "And I swear to god, if the words 'We're pregnant' ever come out of your mouth, I am going to cut your balls off."

Steve frowned. "But I'm not— Why would I even say that?"

"Because that's the 'in' thing now," Barton said as he met up with them, Thor dragging the Iron Man armor right behind him. "It's a way of involving the father in the pregnancy, too, I guess. Think it's kind of stupid myself, but some people think it's some sort of—"

"It's bullshit," Tony cut in. "I ever hear a man say that and he's _not_ the one that's pregnant, I don't care who he is, I'm kicking him in the nuts."

Steve, Thor, and Barton all looked at him pointedly.

"Oh, I'm sorry." He looked down at himself. "Do I or do I not have a super soldier spawn growing inside of me? I am allowed to say whatever the fuck I want."

Barton just clapped Steve on the shoulder and said, "He's all yours, Cap, you lucky son-of-a-gun."

But Steve just smiled dopily at Tony and said, "Yeah, I am."

Steve's dopey smile was contagious, and Tony found he couldn't help but return it in kind, even as the elevator finally opened its doors, and Steve took him gently and ushered him onto the elevator, Barton, Thor, and the Iron Man armor crowding in with them.

Steve didn't take his eyes off him, and Tony watched as he reached out and finally put a hand to his abdomen, his large hand splayed out over the barely-there swell. Tony hissed a little and all but shivered at the satiating feeling of possessiveness that thrummed through his body at Steve's touch to his belly — the first time he'd actually done it, but not the first time he'd attempted. It was a strange feeling; not a bad feeling, just a strange one, and one he felt all the way down to his bones. He was Steve's. This was Steve's. He belonged to Steve.

It was an odd feeling, and it was odd how...accepting of it he was. Maybe that was the point.

Steve's hand went firm, his fingers digging in slightly to the covered flesh as he rubbed his hand against Tony's abdomen, and Tony knew then that Steve felt something, too.

"What is it?" he practically purred.

"Mine," he said. "That's all that's going through my head. Mine."

Tony hummed and pushed closer to him. "Good, because the only thing going through mine is that I'm yours."

"And the only thing going through mine is how much I want to vomit," Barton said.

"Ah, it is part of the hex," Thor said.

"The vomiting?"

"No," Thor said, not seeming to understand Barton's sarcasm. "The feeling of possession. It is part and parcel of the bond they share."

" _Ye-eah_ , you sure they're not just really possessive and greedy people? I have honest-to-god had Stark threaten me with a fork because he thought I was about to take the last piece of sausage at breakfast."

"Mmm…my apartment, my sausage," was all Tony could be bothered to say, as he'd completely forgotten about the dried blood covering the front of Steve's uniform and had nestled himself into Steve's embrace. Steve's arms really felt _fantastic_ , as it turned out.

"Wait, are we talking about actual breakfast food or dicks now?" Barton asked. "Because you have a disturbing habit of turning the most innocent expression into something about Cap's dick."

Tony just made a 'hmm' sound and pushed closer to Steve, eyes shut tight. Steve adjusted his arms, and Barton sighed and groaned and said, "We lost them, didn't we?"

"Evidently not if we can still hear you," Tony said as the elevator opened, and Tony opened his eyes and saw they were at the lab level. Steve motioned Thor and Barton off, Thor dragging the Iron Man armor with him, before he hit the button for the penthouse.

"Look, whatever you do, can you keep it clean until you get up to your—"

But the doors closed before Barton could get his plea out, and Steve pressed a kiss to Tony's head and said, "Want me to hit the emergency stop? We don't have to do anything. They'll just think we are doing something."

"Would serve that bastard right," Tony said and nestled closer just as another wave of nausea hit him. He made a face at it and said, "But yeah, maybe not right now?"

"You OK?" Steve asked and rubbed his back with both hands, giving him a gentle and possessive squeeze as he did so. _God_ , Steve's hands felt wonderful.

"Yeah, my stomach's doing somersaults, but other than that, just hunky dory," he said, and they arrived at the penthouse not a moment too soon. He ran up the stairs and into the bedroom, and he made a mad dash for the bathroom and hit the toilet just as he threw up. He was coughing and gagging by the time he felt a presence behind him, and a large, familiar hand settled on his back and said, "Crackers?"

"Yeah, maybe," he said and sat back with a slight moan. "I don't think I'm going to make it."

But Steve just chuckled a little and said, "You'll be fine. I promise. It doesn't last the whole pregnancy, I don't think."

He didn't even want to know how or why Steve had suddenly fashioned himself an authority on morning sickness during pregnancy. "Of course it won't. I'll be dead from vomiting before I even have the chance to go through the whole...you know— _that_." 

"No, you won't," Steve countered and took hold of Tony's hands to help him up. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up and settled into some comfortable clothes. We have to go debrief with Hill, but I'll make your excuses for you, but _only_ if you promise to curl up on the couch and relax and not go down to your lab and work on stuff that can wait until later."

Tony looked down to Steve's blood-soaked uniform pants then back up at his face. "I'm sorry. Of the two of us in this room, which one almost bled to death not six hours ago?"

Steve just grinned at him, cocky and maybe even a touch proud. "I've got the serum. You don't."

"I kind of do."

"How?"

Tony glanced pointedly down at his abdomen. "Not to mention over a year's worth of super soldier semen being pumped into me on a regular basis. I'm just saying, if you tested my blood right now, you'd probably find trace amounts of the serum floating around my veins."

Steve just nodded, his face taking on a sort of faux-serious contortion like he was merely humoring Tony. "Sure," he said then cupped Tony's face in his hands and stroked his thumbs over Tony's cheekbones. "If you say so, honey."

"I do say so. Please don't kiss me!" he said as Steve brought his mouth down toward his. "I just threw up, and my mouth tastes gross, and—"

Steve laughed and dropped his hands then steered him over to the sink. "Fine. Clean up. Then get changed and cuddle up." He went back over to the toilet and flushed it for Tony, and as Tony pulled out his toothbrush and the toothpaste, he added, "When I get back here, I want to see you comfortable and curled up on the couch and fast asleep."

"I can promise you one of those things," he said and squirted a line of paste onto his brush.

Steve came up behind him, and he put his arms around Tony's waist and pressed a kiss against his temple, his broad hands splayed over Tony's abdomen. "Promise me all three."

Tony shivered at the feel of Steve's hands on his. Fuck, could he make Steve just keep his hands on him forever? "One," he said, the word coming out as a murmur, and Steve snorted a laugh and said something about how he guessed he'd have to take it then kissed his temple then left the bathroom.

By the time Steve got back from debrief, he had fulfilled all three.

~*~

Steve, fit as ever after a good night's sleep, was already gone for his run the next morning when Tony woke up, grumbling and feeling kind of achy and tired and Jesus, was he always going to feel this tired now? And was he achy from that free-fall he'd done the day before or was it something more?

He got up and stretched, and he swallowed down the nausea that overcame him, but the damned thing won again, and he ran into the bathroom, threw up what little was in his stomach, and then went downstairs to the kitchen to get something to settle him. Probably more crackers and toast. That was about the bulk of what he was keeping down nowadays.

It was as he was padding his way into the living room, cup of coffee in one hand, tablet in the other, that JARVIS announced, " _Sir, Miss Potts is on her way up_ ," and Tony looked up and said a none-too-quiet, " _Shit!"_ and made a dash for the steps, but not before the elevator opened, and Pepper came storming off wearing a fitted cream-colored suit, those six-inch killer heels she was so fond of, and a face that read she was out for blood. She stopped dead in her tracks the moment she saw Tony, and Tony grimaced a little and said, "Oh, that's your angry face. I don't like your— Wait—"

" _Who the hell are you?_ "

Tony frowned and went to say he was insulted, but he took a quick look down at himself and realized.

"Oh, right. Um, funny story that I never told you about. Uh, couple months ago, you remember that thing down in the Financial District that we had to—? Yeah? No? Anyway, in the middle of it, this cosmic crazy shows up looking for Thor, but she found me instead, and I guess that was good enough for her and she thought that no one had fucked with my life in a while, and I was overdue, so she kind of turned me into a woman."

Pepper blinked, looking like a mix between utterly perplexed and ready to take his head off, and she just shook her head a little and scrunched her face and said, " _What?_ "

"A woman. I got turned into a woman."

She blinked again, still seemingly unable to process what he was saying. "I'm sorry, _who_ are you again?"

He frowned. "Pep, Pepper-pot, oh queen-of-my-world, it's me."

"Me _who?_ "

"Me Tony."

"Tony who?"

"Uh, Stark." He blinked and looked around. "You know any others?"

Tony could tell he was straining her last nerve, and she was shaking her head, her hands flexing a little as she said, "I'm sorry, are you trying to tell me that _you're_ Tony? Tony Stark? Iron Man Tony Stark?"

"Yeah."

She motioned over him. "Looking like that."

"I told you. I got turned into a woman a little while ago—"

"I _just_ saw Tony Stark last week, and he definitely did not look like that."

He grimaced a bit. "Yeah, here's the thing, I got turned into a woman for like a week, and then I went back to being me only not _everything_ went back to the way it was supposed to be because, as it turns out, I kind of got, er— OK, look, this probably isn't the sort of thing you want to hear, us having the history we do with each other, but let's just say my current paramour and I maybe kind of experimented with, uh, traditional, male-female missionary style sex — and other positions as well! God, we're old, but we're not that lame — and, um…it turns out I was a _fully functional_ woman with all my parts intact and at a rather opportune point in my monthly…cycle."

Pepper just stood there staring at him, and about the only thing she could say to him was, "Well, you ramble like Tony."

"First of all, I don't 'ramble.' Second, it's 'cause I am Tony." He set the tablet and coffee down on a table and moved over to her, and though she still eyed him with unease, she didn't move away from him as he stepped closer to her, and he scowled and looked up and said, "Really? You know, you're killing me with those shoes."

"Why are you like that?" she asked and nodded at him. "If you were Tony last week but now you're not—"

"No, see, I still am Tony, I'm just not physically male." He took a breath and let it out and said, "Long story short, Steve knocked me up."

" _What?_ "

"When I was a woman, Steve knocked me up. He didn't do it intentionally. Neither one of us thought about that. We were idiots, I know that now, all right? I already got enough shit from the peanut gallery over that. Anyway, Steve knocked me up, and you know that crazy cosmic lady I was telling you about? She's fucking nuts. She's some sort of goddess of fertility or something like that. Anyway, she turned me back into a woman so I could carry the fetus to term without it causing too many problems, because, let's face it, my other body? _Kinda_ seen better days."

Pepper sputtered out a few words before she finally said, "Why are you even carrying it to term?"

"Because she's fucking nuts and because if I don't then I'll die."

" _What?_ "

"Yeah, she claims she's tied up my life with this clump of cells in my abdomen, and while I'm sort of 50-50 on whether or not she's full of shit, Thor's convinced she's telling the truth based on the whole past-is-precedent deal, and my wonderful, darling fiancé, the father of my child, light of my life, has no desire to chance finding out because, if I'm reading Natasha's recent cryptic words correctly, I'm like the main thing in the future that's keeping him from chucking it all in and throwing himself in front of a semi — which would probably only dent the truck and barely leave a scratch on him. Seriously, he fell out of a flaming Helicarrier into the Potomac and lived. I'm not sure anything's ever going to kill that man."

Pepper just stared at him a moment before she went over and sat down on the couch. "I… I don't know what to say."

Tony snorted a laugh and sat down with her. "You think I do? Four days ago, I was happy as a clam. Well, not really. I was kind of feeling like shit. Which, incidentally, is how this whole thing started. I was feeling like shit, and I asked Bruce to run some tests for me—"

"You threw up last week."

Tony frowned and looked at her, head tilted like he wasn't sure of her point.

"Remember? At the board meeting. You said you thought you had some bad sushi or something. And then the next day you were still sick, and I—"

She put a hand to her mouth as horror dawned over her.

"Oh, god." She pulled her hand away. "Oh, god, Tony! You're— You're telling the truth."

"No, shit. Why would I lie about something like this?"

"I don't know," she said, a hand at her forehead and a frown covering her face. "I don't know, I just—" She dropped her hand and focused on him, resolute. "Are you OK? How are you feeling? Can I get you anything? Were you drinking coffee? You know you're not supposed to be drinking coffee, right? Does Steve know you're drinking coffee—?"

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" he said and put his hands out to calm her down. "Whoa, Pep, slow down! It's OK. Trust me, it's OK. This isn't something you need to fix. Honestly, I don't think you could fix it, but given a choice between Esmeralda the whatever-the-fuck-she-calls-herself and a tag- team of you and Steve? My money's on you and Steve."

Pepper's face hardened. "Esmeralda? Is that who did this to you?"

"The turning me in to a woman thing? Yeah. All her. The getting me pregnant thing? All Steve." He cringed. "Sorry, I know it's not exactly cool to talk about your new flame with your ex—"

"We've been broken up almost two years, Tony. You've been with Steve over a year. I'm with Happy. I think we're OK talking about that sort of thing."

"Really? It's not weird for you?"

"No weirder than realizing that my ex-boyfriend is now pregnant with Captain America's baby, that's for sure."

He shrugged some but said nothing, and Pepper frowned again and said, "But why? I mean, why is she forcing you to do this?"

He exhaled a heavy breath. " _Y_ _e-eah_ ," he said, drawing out the word, "promise you won't get upset."

"With her?" Pepper asked, sounding like she was ready for a fight.

"Not exactly," Tony said, tilting his head back and forth like he was weighing his response. "She, uh, she kind of has it in her head that Steve and I are 'soul mates—'" he used finger quotes on the phrase, "—and she thinks that, as 'soul mates,' Steve and I are supposed to be fruitful and multiply or some shit like that. _But_ , because we're both, you know, _men_ , she decided she'd help us along with that and poof—" He motioned over himself. "Suddenly, I have a fully-functioning set of female reproductive parts just made for the receipt and processing of super soldier semen."

Pepper's face went pale, her mouth parting slightly in shock and disbelief, and she stammered out a few non-responses until she was able to get out, "How could—? Why even—? But _why?_ I mean why would you and Steve even—"

"Because we're idiots, all right? Because once you kind of accept that you're in the type of relationship where you don't ever have to use contraceptives ever again, you sort of forget that they're even a thing. Not to mention the fact that, if I had even thought about it at the time, I wouldn't have considered that this could even go beyond, you know, _turning back_. I would have figured that being turned back into a man would totally negate this whole thing."

Pepper's eyes had gone wide, a hand hovering over her mouth like she wasn't sure whether to make the final connection or not. "And it didn't?"

"Nope! That's how we even found out about this whole thing to begin with. Brucie ran an ultrasound on me and found something there that should not ever, ever, _ever_ be there. When we asked the Esmeralda the Delusional _very nicely_ to remove the spell, she claimed it was out of her hands, _but_ , she did turn me back into this to make it 'easier' for me—" He again used finger quotes on the word 'easier.'

Pepper stared at him a moment, blinking, frowning, her hand now resting at her side. She nodded and said, "OK — and not that I'm saying it's something you should even do — but why… _Why?_ "

"Why what, snicker doodle?"

"Why… _keep it?_ "

He heaved out a sigh. "I told you, Pep. I'm not _allowed_ to get rid of it."

A streak of ferocious anger flashed over Pepper's face. "Steve—"

"No!" he said quickly. "No! Not Steve! No, I told you. It's part of Nutsy's spell. I mean, it's not unique to my case. She does it to everyone."

"Does _what?_ " Pepper asked, snippy, and Tony could tell she still didn't believe him about Steve.

"According to her, my life is tied up in the life of this clump of cells growing in my abdomen. The clump of cells lives, I live; the clump of cells dies, I—"

" _What?_ " Pepper cried, and Tony knew it was from disbelief and not a lack of understanding.

"Peppy, honey, you've got that look on your face, and I don't like it. You might bust a—"

"She's _forcing you_ to do this?"

"It's really not that bad," he tried to reason, but Pepper was having none of it.

"Did you— I mean, did you _know_ this going into it?"

Tony snorted out a laugh. "Are you kidding me? I _just_ found out about this! We didn't know this was her intention back when she turned me back the first time!"

Pepper just blinked at him, staring at him like she couldn't even fathom the words Tony was speaking, and Tony thought she'd blown a fuse until she said, "So, you got turned into a woman, _accidentally_ got pregnant, and now you're forced to, what, _carry it to term?_ No choice whatsoever? _How_ is that 'not that bad'? Explain to me how that's 'not that bad.'"

Actually, the way she was practically shrieking her words, Tony wasn't sure she _wouldn't_ bust an artery or something.

"It doesn't hurt," he said with a breezy shrug.

_"Tony—"_

"Pep," he said and put a hand up to quiet her, "honestly, I'm _really_ trying not to think about that part too much, OK? So, please, just… I _know_ you're trying to help, I _know_ you're trying to figure out some way to fix this, but there's nothing _to_ fix — or there's no way _to_ fix it, anyway. It just…has to run its course," he finished with a slightly defeated shrug.

"Like a cold," Pepper muttered, and Tony knew his words had done nothing to put her at ease.

"Like I said, it's really not that bad. It doesn't hurt — at least not aside from the general tenderness and malaise that, from what I understand, is part and parcel of this whole thing — and Steve hasn't run off on me yet, so that's another tick in the plus column. I mean it… It could be worse, is what I'm saying."

Pepper had pursed her lips into a flat line, and she shook her head a little and stared at him, almost like she was disappointed in his attempt to rationalize with himself.

"This isn't something you should be _forced_ to do, Tony. It should be something you _want_ to do. What does Steve think about all this?"

He rolled his eyes. "Steve had to be restrained from strangling her, and once he found out the truth of how this whole thing works, he went all… _Steve_ about it."

" _Steve?_ "

"Yeah, you know how he looks at anything that's not all sunshine and roses as some sort of wartime battle plan to be figured out? His whole thing now is keeping me in perfect health. He didn't even want me going out in the suit until I reminded him that not only am I safer in that tin can than he is in his flimsy little polymer but that I _still_ have autonomy over that. Esmeralda might have taken my autonomy over my own body away from me — again, _really_ trying not to think about that right now — but _no one_ is taking Iron Man away from me."

Pepper closed her mouth and nodded. He didn't expect her to quite understand that — Iron Man had been a point of contention in their relationship from the time it had started until the moment it had ended — but thankfully she didn't say anything to it and just seemingly nodded her understanding to Tony's quandary.

They sat there quietly, Pepper frowning, almost like they had run out of words to say, but she soon reached out and took his hand, and she laughed a little and said, "Wow, it's so weird."

"What is?"

"How…different you are but at the same time how…very much the same you are." She examined his hand, turning it over in her grasp. "I can still see you in this new…body…of yours." She looked up and met his gaze. "I can still see it in your face. I'm so sorry, Tony."

"For what? You didn't do this."

"I know, but…" She gave his hand a squeeze. "If you need anything — anything — don't even hesitate to ask me, you understand me?"

"Loud and clear," he replied with a firm nod.

She just nodded and smiled a little, and she squeezed his hand again as the elevator opened, and Steve came into the room carrying a large cardboard shipping box. He stopped short when he saw Pepper and Tony sitting on the couch, and he glanced at Tony and said, "Uh…does she…?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I explained it." He jumped up and went over to meet him, and he went up on his toes and kissed Steve before he said, "What's in the box?"

Steve shrugged. "Dunno. There's no name attached, but it's supposed to be delivered to the penthouse, so…"

Tony took the box from his hands. "Oh, this must be for me," he said and carried it over to the couch. He sat down with it, and Steve and Pepper exchanged 'hello's while Tony began to rip the tape off the box and plunder the bounty therein.

Just as he'd suspected. Unfortunately. He pulled out the first article of clothing, an eggplant- colored padded underwire bra, and Pepper had to hide a laugh behind her hand while Steve looked on in amusement and intrigue.

"I now understand," he said and looked at Pepper, who was looking at him like he was something stupid and precious and naïve.

"Oh, Tony," she said with a laugh as she reached out and stroked his hair.

"Yeah, whatever," he said and whipped his shirt off. Pepper went to avert her gaze to offer him some amount of privacy, but he rolled his eyes and said, "Don't bother. It's fine," and he stood up to try and better get the right leverage he needed to put the stupid thing on.

Steve, the pervert, didn't even bother with the courtesy to _attempt_ to give him any privacy, just stood there with his arms folded as he watched Tony maneuver with the bra.

"OK, let the record show that only one of you in this room has any decency, and it's not the one from the forties."

But Steve just shrugged and said, "Seen it already, plus, I think I'm allowed to look at whatever I want on my fiancé."

"Yeah? That's sweet," Tony muttered as he struggled with the stupid contraption. Pepper grimaced and stood up to help him, but he jerked away and said, "No! I have to learn how to do this myself."

"Tony, it's a bra," she said. "Trust me, they're trickier than you think."

"I've done it before," he said and fiddled with the straps, fitting his breasts into the cups and tugging on it so that it fit as comfortably as it possibly could. He sighed a little when he thought he'd gotten it, and he held his arms out and modeled it and said, "Well? What do you think?"

"It…looks fantastic on you, Tony," Pepper said, humor and levity filling her voice.

Tony returned her smile before he turned to Steve, who stood there stony-faced with his arms still folded. He swallowed and nodded, and he cleared his throat some and said a quiet, "Excuse me," before he turned and made his way up the steps, taking them two at a time as he dashed up, and Tony frowned and watched after him until he'd gotten to the top, and he turned to Pepper and said, "You know, I really don't think he finds me attractive this way."

Pepper laughed but then sobered when she realized he was serious, and she smiled at him and put her arm around his shoulders and said, "Tony, honey, trust me. He finds you attractive."

"Yeah, but he just—"

" _Tony_ , he finds you _attractive_. _Trust me_ on this."

Tony wasn't sold, but the hell he was arguing with Pepper Potts over, well, _anything_.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, everyone, that's left comments so far. I thoroughly appreciate them, and I'm humbled by how many people seem to actually remember this story, lol! I promise to get to them in the coming days or weeks, but being An Adult™ and also contracting some sort of killer cold are eating up most of my time at the moment.

* * *

Tony wasn't turning back into a man any time soon.

This was…not something he was willing to accept, but it was something he was willing to work with. Sort of. OK, he was willing to piss and moan about it.

He felt absolutely lousy. He was tired all the time, he was cranky, and his clothes just weren't fitting him the right way, which meant he had to settle for JARVIS ordering him some apparel in the appropriate size and shape for his…figure. OK, it was really just tanks and yoga pants and boring cotton underwear, but it still counted. Bras were annoying, he was fucking breaking out in pimples like he was a teenager again, and his hair, never all that thin to begin with, was even thicker than he could have imagined. It was also a pain in the ass to deal with, which meant, more often than not, that he pulled it back into a ponytail and forgot about it. Sure, he could have chopped it to the length he was used it, but he…kind of liked having long hair for a change.

He knew, on some level, he should look at this as a learning exercise of some kind, but it was hard to see it as anything other than a violation of his body, his autonomy, and the laws of nature.

While he had enjoyed looking at them in general in the past, he did not enjoy having breasts of his own, which always seemed to get in the way whenever he was trying to fold his arms or make a point of some kind, and while bras were, again, annoying as fuck, it was even more annoying to not wear one. And he had remember to sit down to pee, which, for whatever reason, he had to do a _lot_.

He consigned himself to his lab, where he labored and toiled away at various upgrades and gadgets and gizmos he had promised the team and the Board — when he wasn't passed out on the couch that was. Seriously, he was fucking exhausted constantly, he woke up nauseated, and he could barely stand the smell of various foods he hadn't been able to get enough of in his other body.

In short, being pregnant sucked.

But what sucked — what fucking sucked more than anything — about it was that it wasn't by choice. It had been done to him against his will, and he shivered at the very thought that someone could have that much control over him. So, he didn't think about it. In fact, he tried to pretend like it hadn't even happened. That he hadn't been turned into a woman. That the rest of the team didn't see him any differently.

That _Steve_ didn't see him any differently.

He still went out with the team on the odd raid — _no one_ was taking that from him — forced to contain himself to the Iron Man armor and use the voice modulator lest anyone notice that there was something…odd about Tony Stark. But that was the only time he saw the outside world. He didn't think there was actually anything keeping him from venturing outside into the daylight, and in fact, it would probably be better for him this way. No one knew him in this body, and so he could walk the streets unencumbered. But he had little desire to leave the building except for Avenging because… Because…

Look, he wasn't depressed, all right? Fucking freaked out, maybe, but not depressed. He wasn't about to put a gun in his mouth or anything. Hell, if he wanted that, he could just get himself an abortion — well, so long as Esmeralda wasn't full of shit and he really would die if he got one. For as much as he complained, honestly, he wasn't any more comfortable chancing that than Steve was — not that he'd _tell_ him this. God, last thing he wanted to do was give Steve even more reason to believe he was _right_ about something.

But it was fucking terrifying, and the only thing that made it not as terrifying as it could be was the fact that it was Steve's. He loved Steve, he'd loved him for a long time, but he'd never, ever once thought about what it would be like to carry his child. Ever. OK, sure, he'd thought about what it would be like to combine their DNA, and he'd even, in the privacy of his own mind, toyed with the idea of it in a lab setting, but even then he knew he'd need a donor egg and a surrogate in order to pull it off, _not_ an egg from his own goddamned body. That he would gestate with his own damned body.

There was a small, hysterical part of him that didn't even actually believe what was happening to him, that tried to play it off, that assured him this was all some long, drawn-out, drug-fueled, crazy, protracted dream. Many times he was tempted to give into that frenzied part of himself because that part of himself sure as shit sounded much more rational and sane than the part that was trying to convince him that he really _was_ going through all of this. He couldn't _feel_ anything, either, which didn't help matters. Oh, he felt the nausea and the exhaustion and the tenderness of his breasts (which were, at current, what he understood to be a generous C-cup), but he didn't actually _feel_ anything growing inside of him. He'd seen the monitor along with the others, but there was nothing that that was a dead giveaway that that was _his_ body. That could have been anyone's body. Hell, that could have been a cached image. There was no guarantee Bruce had used it the right way. What did Bruce know about that, anyway?

He struggled to fall asleep every night because he could never seem to find a comfortable position unless he was lying on his side with a pillow shoved between his legs, and those times he was able to catch a few winks, he drifted off with the naïve hope that he'd wake up the following morning back to his old self. But every morning, he woke up disappointed because he was still a woman, still nauseated, and therefore still pregnant. Well, maybe 'disappointed' wasn't the right word to use. So fucking despondent that there were times he thought about throwing himself off the roof of the Tower and taking every precaution imaginable to make sure JARVIS wouldn't send one of the suits after him.

But he was totally not depressed!

No, it wasn't because he was depressed. It was because this was scary and this was so far from anything he'd ever wanted that he wasn't sure there were actual words for him to deal with it. There _were_ no words for this. There were no emotions. He was a man — and very happily so — that had been turned into a woman that had been impregnated, and now was forced to endure this impossible pregnancy to its end unless he wanted to die. Esmeralda the Insane had sold it as some kind of fail-safe to protect the clump of cells growing within him, which would be all fine and dandy if he actually _wanted_ this clump of cells growing within him — if he'd _chosen_ to have this clump of cells growing within him. But he hadn't. He'd been forced into it (he'd heard Steve use the term 'shanghaied,' which he was pretty sure wasn't very politically correct anymore, but he'd been saying it to Thor, who wouldn't have caught on to that) and given no choice but to see it through until it came to its inevitable end. Pepper was totally right in that this should have been something he'd _chosen_ to do or _wanted_ to do (though he was 99.99% sure he never would have chosen it or wanted it if presented with the opportunity), but being forced into it, being coerced into it, well, that was… He supposed there were words for that, but he really, _really_ didn't want to think about them because that would imply he was nothing more than a cosmic plaything with no control over his own _body_ let alone his whole life. He honestly wasn't sure how he hadn't gone crazy with that knowledge yet.

No, he was, actually. It was because of Steve.

Because Steve had said that no, he wasn't going to let him die and they were going to get through this _together_ , and there was a small part of Tony — that ancient and innocent part that admired Steve and looked up to him and believed every word that he said because he said it with such conviction — that believed Steve and believed that Steve _wasn't_ going to let him die and he and Steve _would_ do this together. Because when Captain America said something, it was the absolute truth, and there was no use arguing against the truth.

Steve was so good about everything, honestly. He was sure that, deep down, the man was in a constant state of panic and incomprehension, but he never let it show on the surface. No, Steve was always steadfast and sure and confident and commanding. He looked at Tony's predicament the same way he would look at any problem: search for a solution and find a way to make it right, no drama, no theatrics, just plain, old-fashioned gumption and guts. Though he wasn't proud of it, he could admit to himself that he relied on Steve, and he relied on him a lot. He leaned on him, he depended upon him, and he looked to him, honestly, to make it right. He looked to Steve maybe not to change him back — Steve, sadly, did not have that power — but at least make it bearable. He was terrified of doing this, he was terrified of going through it, but he could manage it somehow with Steve by his side. And Steve, well, Steve provided all of that and then some.

He supposed it was just the way Steve was. Steve was just that kind of guy. But Tony liked to think he was at least somewhat special, that Steve maybe would do this for anyone out of obligation but for Tony, yeah, he was doing it because he wanted to. Because he loved him.

Because maybe, deep down, he was terrified, too, but he knew he had to be strong for Tony and he wanted to be strong for Tony. Because he loved him, and because he wanted to do right by him.

Tony found himself, over the course of the next couple weeks, staring at his profile in the bathroom mirror after a shower and trying to see, well, _anything_ . Trying to see what had grown or what hadn't. His belly wasn't the rock-hard flatness of Steve's abs — it never was as flat or rock- hard as Steve's, but whose was? — but it definitely didn't _look_ like it was swollen any, Esmeralda's words be damned. He did have to admit, and this wasn't him being vain, that he did have a rather attractive body as a woman. His own body hadn't been _too_ shabby — well, when he was younger and before he'd damaged it with booze and arc reactors — but this body was actually kind of gorgeous. In fact, one of JARVIS's scans had even shown an almost perfect symmetry, with his bust-to-waist-to-hips ratio the culturally agreed upon ideal. His dark hair was thick and glossy with only the slightest of natural waves, and his facial features had been softened and brightened, his brows thinned, his lips slightly plumper, but his eyes were the same brown that caught different shades depending upon the light and his eyelashes still thick and black and curly.

It was almost like he'd been engineered to appear as the perfect woman. Almost.

On one occasion when he was standing in the bathroom looking over his body one evening before bed, hands cupping weighty breasts before he slid them down to his abdomen, he caught Steve watching him, lips slightly parted, gaze raking over his body, and when he went to call out to tease him about being a voyeur, Steve just turned and left the bathroom. If he didn't know better, he'd say Steve was embarrassed at getting caught. He followed him out and watched as Steve climbed under the covers and pulled them up to his shoulder.

"You don't like it, do you?" he asked, standing in front of the bed stark naked.

Fuck, what a lousy pun.

"Not the words I'd use," he muttered, curled on his side with his eyes shut tight.

"Yeah? What are the words you'd use then?"

Steve shook his head but wouldn't open his eyes. "You don't want to know."

"Think I want to know what my fiancé thinks of my appearance."

Steve squeezed his eyes tighter, like he was trying to rid himself of an image of some kind. "Tony, please, don't."

"Don't what? On a scale of one to ten, how repulsed are you by my body?"

"That's not the word I would use. Trust me."

"Yeah? What is the word you'd use then?"

" _Tony_ —"

"Disgusted? Revolted? Nauseated? Appalled?"

Steve huffed out a breath and threw off the covers, and Tony saw then he was partially hard. He ran his gaze over the outline of Steve's cock, and Steve got out of the bed and walked over to him, crowding him, and Tony felt every bit of their five-inch difference in heights as he did so.

"You really want to know what I think?" Steve asked, his voice low and hitting an octave that was usually only reserved for their most lustful and debauched of trysts.

And then, before Tony could even take a breath, Steve's mouth was on his, and Steve's hands were on his body — all over his body. He squeaked a little in the kiss as Steve's hands went greedily from his breasts down to his belly and then to his ass, groping him, like he was trying to feel everything that he could before Tony got wise to him and threw him off. And then Steve's hands were on the underside of his thighs and trying to hoist him up to rest on his hips, and Tony put his hands on Steve's shoulders and pushed back, breaking the kiss in the process. He went to explain himself for his behavior — he just…honestly hadn't been feeling it for some time — but Steve, his lips reddened and glistening with saliva, his eyes hooded, just burned his crystalline blue gaze into Tony's and growled, " _That's_ what I think," before he went into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

Tony…was left pretty much speechless, which was kind of a first, and Steve probably deserved a medal for that.

But he came to his senses rather quickly and went over to the bathroom door. "Babe?" he asked and knocked on it. "Uh… You OK in there?"

"It's a bathroom, Tony."

"Yeah, I know but I couldn't help but notice you were kind of half-hard when you got out of the bed, and I'm pretty sure I felt nine inches of _something_ hitting against me when you were fondling me just now—"

Steve groaned. "Are you in the mood to help me with this?"

He thought about it. "Not really. That's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about. This is _totally_ on me, but, you know, I just haven't been feeling it for a while now. I don't know if it's the nausea or the exhaustion or what it is, but I honestly don't remember the last time I was horny—"

"Tony, _please_ ," Steve said, his voice sounding almost pained. "Just… Just give me five minutes."

Tony frowned and looked at the bathroom door as he suddenly realized what was going on there. "What the hell are you doing jerking off in there? Get out here. Fuck, not like I haven't seen it before."

"It's…easier to clean up in here."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Fuck's sake, Steve. Grab a sock like everyone else. Or— You know what? Get out here. I'll jerk it for you."

"Yeah, really sounds like a thrilling prospect for you."

"Look, I'm not— I'm not really crazy about the idea of you sticking it in me at the moment — again, _not_ a reflection on you. That's all on me. But I can jerk you off. I've done it before, and as I recall, it went over pretty well."

Steve was silent a moment before he said, "You sure?"

"It would be my honor to jerk off Captain America."

"What did I tell you about that?" he asked with a pained whine.

"Only do it sporadically so you don't accidentally come in the middle of a battle?"

" _Tony!_ "

"Babe, come on. Just come out here, and I'll make you feel good. I promise."

There was silence from inside the bathroom before Tony heard the turn of the latch, and Steve appeared looking flushed, somewhat abashed, and so hard it probably hurt. Tony looked him over then said, "You started anything yet?"

"No, it was hard to concentrate."

Tony made a face. "Yeah, well, clearly you were able to concentrate enough to get it up—"

"I _mean_ you wouldn't shut up. It was hard to concentrate."

Tony snorted a laugh. "My talking through you fucking—"

" _Tony_ —"

"— _making love_ ," he amended with a roll of his eyes, "to me has never stopped you before. In fact, I think you've kind of used it to your advantage."

"Are you going to help me with this or what?"

Tony pointed. "On the bed, soldier," he said, and Steve, almost as relieved as he was happy, complied.

So, as it turned out, maybe Steve wasn't as disgusted by his female form as he'd thought—

Only, that brought up another issue, namely, did Steve like his female form _more?_ That was a question he really didn't think he could handle being answered if only because he was afraid of what the answer might be. It's not that he believed that Steve didn't love him or wasn't attracted to him as a man. Clearly, he wouldn't have been with him if he hadn't been, and Steve didn't seem like the type to waste his time in a relationship he wasn't fully committed to. But Steve was an old- fashioned guy from the '40s. He clearly had been attracted to women in the past, and just because he was bi didn't mean there wasn't a part of him that maybe wanted to go with a woman because that '40s brain of his might find it _easier_ . He knew Steve loved him, but if Steve could have him as a _woman…_

Which was definitely not something he was putting any energy into at the moment because, again, he wasn't sure he'd like the results. Steve might have paid lip service to Tony getting back to his original form, but for all he knew, deep down, Steve was sort of hoping that Tony would just stay the way he was. If he was remembering that week correctly, Steve seemed to enjoy sex with female Tony as much as he did male Tony, and there was the fact that he could become aroused quite easily just by _looking_ at Tony's naked female form. Tony _himself_ hadn't changed any — personality-wise, at least. He was still the same Tony that he was. So, if Steve could have a 'Tony' in spirit and an…oh, hell, _Antonia_ in body…

But he was definitely _not_ thinking about that because, again, results had a good chance of not being to his liking.

In lieu of making an actual doctor's appointment or anything like that — because…why would he? — he insisted on Bruce checking him and JARVIS running scans on him, which earned him nothing but the Sigh of Disapproval from Steve — replete with head-tip and hands-on-hips — but fuck it. He was _not_ going to some doctor's office for this. Hell, he wasn't sure he would ever leave the confines of the Tower again, which earned him a stupid 'Rapunzel' comment from Barton, which made absolutely no sense because no one but he himself was keeping him in this tower.

Because... Because...

Because — going out in public, letting people see him — that would be tantamount to accepting what had been done to him, and if he accepted what had been done to him, and he accepted that he was a woman and that he was pregnant, then what did that say for who he really was?

~*~

Tony was roused from his slumber by the sound of harsh voices arguing, and he moaned a little and, for some odd reason, immediately thought of his parents arguing once upon a time.

Rolling over on the couch, he turned onto his back and pressed the palm of his right hand into his eye and groaned a little, the pain of a headache that still hadn't left him throbbing in his skull. He cracked open his eyes and saw two figures standing beside him, the light catching them both from behind and making them both glow like ethereal angels from upon high.

He squinted a little at them, and as sleep left him, they both came into focus, and he saw that one was Steve while the other one was—

"Rhodey," he croaked out in a sleep-tired voice.

But Rhodey just stood there, arms folded and murder splayed over his face as he glared at Steve, who stood beside him looking equal parts apprehensive and annoyed.

"You know," Rhodey was telling Steve, "I expected more from Captain America. Maybe that's on me, but I totally expected more of you. What was all that bullshit about you loving him and not wanting to hurt him? Was that just so you could get with him? Was that just so I wouldn't kick your ass, because I'll tell you right now, I don't care if you are nine hundred years old, I am really restraining myself from kicking the shit out of you right about now."

"Look," Steve said, hands on his hips and jaw set, "if you would just _listen to me_ , I can explain every—"

"No, see, you don't _get it_. I don't _want_ your explanations. I want to know what you're doing sticking your dick into someone else behind Tony's back. _In_ Tony's goddamned penthouse."

Steve rolled his eyes and groaned, and he rubbed a hand over his face. "Look, Jim—"

"No, it's 'Colonel' to you. You lost that privilege when you brought this home."

He nodded his head at Tony at that, and Tony frowned a little and sat up.

"Boo-bear, what are you talking about?" he asked and yawned, and he made a face as that fucking nausea came over him again. "Oh, come _on_ ," he muttered and put a hand to his abdomen.

"You OK?" Steve asked and put a hand on his shoulder, all the annoyance wiped away and only concern left etched upon his face.

He swallowed and made a face. "Need something to settle my stomach."

"Crackers?"

He just nodded, and Steve squeezed his shoulder and made his way toward the kitchen, leaving Rhodey in the living room with Tony for the time being. Rhodey turned his attention to him, and there was nothing but contempt written over his face as he said, "I don't know what you think you're doing or _who_ you think you're doing—"

But Tony just shushed him and said, "Lovebug, lower your voice. I have a headache still."

The term of endearment gave Rhodey pause, but only for a moment before he became even more resolute than before.

"Is this a joke?" he asked.

"I sincerely hope so," he muttered as Steve came back with a package of saltines, and Tony tore into them and began to crunch on them. He muttered out a crackery 'thank you' to Steve, who ran gentle fingers through Tony's hair and assured Tony he didn't have to thank him for anything.

Rhodey just shook his head in disbelief. "This is… You know, I expected this from at least half — if not more — of Tony's other lovers, but you, Cap? I really expected more from you."

Tony frowned and looked up at Steve, cracker halfway to his mouth. "What's he talking about?" he asked then turned to Rhodey. "Cinnamon bun, what are you talking about?"

As Tony crunched on his cracker, Rhodey opened his mouth to say something, but Steve cut in before he could.

"He thinks I'm screwing around on you."

He faked a gasp. "Steven! How could you?"

"Tony, not _now_."

" _Tony?_ " Rhodey asked in surprise, and then JARVIS intoned, " _Colonel Rhodes, if I may be of some assistance?_ "

"With throwing these two out of here?" Rhodey said. "Be my guest."

" _That is not what I meant, Colonel. But I may be able to explain the situation as far as it stands in a way that the Captain and Sir have been unsuccessful so far in articulating._ "

"I haven't had a _chance_ to articulate it," Steve grumbled like an old man, but JARVIS just continued to explain.

" _Approximately thirteen weeks ago, the Avengers were dispatched to attend to a situation happening down in the Financial District. While there, Sir happened upon a visitor from one of the realms, who cast upon him a spell that turned him into a woman. While a woman, Sir and Captain Rogers engaged in sexual intercourse in the so-named 'missionary style' position without thinking to take contraceptive measures. As a woman, Sir conceived a child and turned back into a man approximately one week after the initial incident. Sir continued living as a man until approximately two weeks ago when the symptoms of his condition became so that he requested the aid of Doctor Banner in diagnosing his ailment in order to, I believe the words he used were, 'Shut Steve up.'_ "

"You worry too much," Tony muttered by way of explanation and crunched on another cracker, but Steve looked less than pleased by it. The explanation, not the cracker.

" _Doctor Banner performed an ultrasound exam on Sir and found him to be, as I believe they say, 'with child.' Blood and urine analysis further confirmed this. A call was put out to Thor Odinson, who was then dispatched to make contact with the Goddess Esmeralda—_ "

" _Goddess_ ," Steve muttered in disgust.

"— _who returned and turned Sir back into a woman in order to allow for the full completion of the hex she had cast upon him. Sir is, at-present, at approximately twelve weeks' gestation with the child of Captain Rogers._ "

There was dead silence in the room for exactly one minute as Rhodey stood there and glanced from Steve to Tony to Steve to Tony and back again, mouth open in disbelief as he blinked and looked between them. He finally shook his head before he put his hands up in defeat.

"I can't… I can't."

"Can't what, boo-berry?"

"You're _pregnant?_ " he shouted, glaring down at him.

Tony winced at the shout and the way it cut straight to the dull throb in his head. "First, ow. What did I say about a headache? Second, hey, wanna shout it a little louder? My parents' corpses didn't quite hear it." He scoffed and added, "Jesus, Howard's spinning in his grave over this."

"That's what really happened?" Rhodey asked and looked between Tony and Steve.

Steve just grimaced and rubbed at the back of his neck. "Yeah, unfortunately."

"You two _idiots_ had sex and didn't even think about using a condom?"

"We're two _men_ , honey-bunny! We're both clean and in a committed, monogamous relationship. We never had any use for them. I mean, yeah, sure, maybe to keep the mess down, but to be honest, sometimes, that's—"

" _Tony_ ," Steve cut in.

"What? I'm just trying to explain why we didn't have any condoms on us and didn't even think of using them."

But Rhodey just rubbed his hands over his face before he looked Tony square in the eye. "Wait, let me get this straight. You were a _woman_ —"

"Yeah."

"With the…working parts of a woman?"

"Yeah— _Well_ , I actually sort of thought I just had the _appearance_ of a woman, not all the actual working parts. _Clearly_ , I was wrong about that."

"But it never even occurred to either of you that, you know, maybe if Tony _looked_ like a woman, he, you know, _was_ a woman? With everything that goes with it?"

"OK, when you put it that way, we sound like absolute morons."

He groaned and shook his head before he threw his hands up again like he was admitting defeat once more.

"I can't believe you two." He turned to Steve. "And now I'm pissed at you for a totally different reason."

Tony jumped up. "Whoa! Whoa! It's not his fault!" he cried and stood between Steve and Rhodey. "Look, there were two of us in that room, we both jointly decided it was something we wanted to try. We tried it. A lot. And, you know—" He motioned down at himself like it explained everything.

But Rhodey shook his head and said, "But I don't get— Why are you _still_ —?"

"You mean why don't I get rid of it?"

"I know you haven't suddenly become one of those 'life begins at conception' types." He shot a surreptitious glance at Steve then said, "Is someone forcing you to—?"

"Yeah," Tony conceded, "but not who you think."

Rhodey just frowned and tilted his head a bit in confusion, and Steve said, "Esmeralda. It's part of the spell."

"How? I mean—?"

"First of all, what JARVIS failed to mention is the Quack Esmeralda is a fucking lunatic that, according to Thor, goes around blessing couples that are 'bonded' to each other — don't ask; don't know — with shit like this. She thinks Steve and I are 'soul mates,' and, according to her, every soul-mated pair wants to have dozens upon dozens of little Mini-Mes. Not only does she _not_ think Steve and I are the exception to this, but _somehow_ , she claims to have bonded this parasite's life with mine so that if I in any way try to get rid of it, I'll kill myself, too."

Rhodey just raised an eyebrow. "And you believe her?"

Tony blinked. "Uh, am I, or am I not, standing here before you now as a _woman? Clearly_ , if she can do this to me, she can do that, too. But actually, yeah, no, I wondered the same thing, but Thor says this is her MO and this is par for the course and that she does it to _every_ conception she 'blesses,' and the wonderful and special father of my child refuses to chance anything because of that."

"Tony, I just don't want—"

"I know, babe, I know," he said and turned back to him. "But all I keep thinking is that someone else is deciding my fate _again_ —"

"Honey, if Thor said it was a ruse and she was full of shit, you know I wouldn't care. But he is a hundred percent positive that she's telling the truth—"

"Yeah, that's great, Steve, but all I see is more of my choices being taken away from me. I don't even have fucking autonomy over my body anymore, and you cannot even _begin_ to imagine how fucking terrifying  that is—"

"No, I can't, and I know that—"

Rhodey let out a sharp, piercing whistle, and they both stopped their bickering and turned to him.

"I'm sorry," he said, looking anything but, "I'm still trying to comprehend the fact that _you're now a woman_."

" _You_ think you're still trying to comprehend it?" Tony muttered.

"I mean, is this permanent?" he asked, ignoring Tony's utterance. "Are you turned into a woman for the rest of your life?"

"God, I hope not," he muttered with a scoff and rolled his eyes.

"Then…how long do you have to stay like this?"

He shrugged. "At least until I give… At least until it's born."

Rhodey just glanced between Steve and Tony, still seeming to have trouble comprehending what he was hearing before he said to both of them, "And you're OK with this?"

Tony could do nothing but shrug again. "Don't seem to have any other choice."

Rhodey turned his attention to Steve. "Cap?"

Steve heaved out a breath as he stood there, arms folded with hands tucked into his armpits. "At the moment, there's not much we can do about it. Thor is very much of the opinion that Esmeralda means exactly what she says about the fetus's life being tied up with Tony's. Tony lets it grow and develop, he'll be OK. He tries to terminate it in any way, he'll kill himself, and that's not happening."

Tony put his arms around Steve's waist and pushed close to him, pressing his cheek against Steve's chest as he looked back at Rhodey. "You know it's true because Captain America said so."

" _Tony_ ," Steve said with a groan, but still put his arms around him to hold him.

"What?" he asked and tipped his head up to look at Steve, but Steve was stone-cold-serious as he met his gaze.

"You know I'm not saying this as 'Captain America,' right? This is one hundred percent Steve Rogers talking."

"Mmm… I know," he said and smiled lazily at him then went up on his toes to nuzzle at Steve's jaw. He hummed again and said, "Need a shave, old man."

"Really? I was thinking about growing a beard."

He snorted a laugh. "No, you weren't. It's not army regulation."

"Haven't been in the army in damn near seventy years."

"Old habits die hard."

"I'm not that old and set in my ways."

Tony moved his mouth from Steve's jaw to the pulse point in his neck. He sucked at it a bit then said, "Can't teach an old dog new tricks."

"I'm a very fast learner."

"Could you two really not do that?" Rhodey asked from somewhere in the distance, and Tony blinked and pulled away from Steve to look at him.

"Aw, what's the matter, tinkertoy? I thought all you wanted was my everlasting happiness?"

Rhodey grimaced a little and put his hands up. "Yeah, but I really don't need you two getting your everlasting happiness all over me." He paused in thought a moment and added, "OK, that sounded pretty bad—"

"Yeah, and sad news, mugwump, I'm kind of a one-fella-at-a-time kind of guy— _Now_ , I am! Don't give me that look. OK, maybe there was a time— Look, whatever. I'm gonna have to explain that to my wonderful and understanding fiancé now."

"I think I can imagine what it means," Steve said but just tightened the arms he had around him.

"Anyway, so, the point is that no, we wouldn't be getting our everlasting happiness all over you because that's the kind of thing we do behind closed doors now."

Rhodey made a face, and he made a motion toward the elevator and said, "Is Bruce here? Maybe I'll go hang out with him for a little while."

He went over to the elevator, mumbling something Tony couldn't understand, and Tony called after him, "Oh, don't be like that, pumpkin patch! You think we're adorable together!"

Rhodey just waved him off and stepped into the elevator, and Tony heard him say, "Yeah, JARVIS, is Bruce around? Think I'll go hang out with him until those two get out of their system whatever it is that…" He shivered and shook his head, and the doors closed.

"He doesn't really think we're that gross," Tony said and looked up at Steve, chin resting on a pectoral. "He thinks we're disgustingly cute, though."

"He has good taste then," Steve said and bent his head to brush their lips together. "Feeling better?" he asked after he'd pecked a gentle kiss to Tony's mouth.

He tilted his head back and forth a bit and said, "Eh, maybe a little. Really hope this doesn't keep up the whole time. I don't think I could handle it."

"I'm sure it won't," Steve said and pecked his lips again before he loosened his grip and made headway in the direction of the elevator. "Gonna go run through some trials with Thor. Want to watch?"

He shook his head and yawned a little. "No," he said, "think I'll head down to the lab and work on some stuff. Have a list about a mile long of stuff I'm supposed to do for everybody."

Steve frowned at him and hit the button for the elevator. "Don't work yourself too hard."

"Never do, baby blue. I'll have JARVIS pull up the feed from the gym, though. So I can watch you flex those muscles and get all sweaty."

"And here I thought maybe you'd watch it for pointers," he said and stepped onto the elevator once it had returned from dropping Rhodey off on Bruce's floor. "And no coffee!" he called out as the doors closed.

Tony just waved him off then said, "J?"

" _Sir?"_

"You tell Steve about this," he said as he went into the kitchen and over to the coffeemaker, "and I'll let Barton use your main server for target practice."

" _A most frightening prospect, Sir_."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, this chapter is kind of long compared to those that came before.
> 
> Also, anything in this story that bears even the slightest resemblance to anything seen in Civil War is pure coincidence. This story was written before any scene/snippet of dialogue from CW had even been released.
> 
> Note of Caution: There is a part of a scene in this chapter that some may consider to be transphobic. It is not intended to be. At most, it is intended to be read as Tony using some creep's transphobia to put him in his place. But please be aware that some may consider it transphobic. Also, there is also some derogatory language and a hefty amount of sexual harassment. If any of that makes you uneasy, you may want to skip this chapter.

* * *

 "Well, don't you look nice all gussied up?" Barton said as Natasha strolled through the penthouse living room one evening a few weeks later.

Tony glanced up from where he sat on the couch, tucked comfortably into Steve's side, and noticed that Natasha did appear to have cleaned herself up a bit and put some makeup on. She smirked a little at Barton and swiped at his head like she was going to smack him, but he ducked out of her reach, and she grabbed her small purse from where she'd set it on the arm of the couch and said, "Don't wait up, boys."

"Where're you going?" Bruce asked and glanced at her.

"Well, Pepper's in town," she said as she opened her purse and checked it. "We try to make it a habit to get together for a night when she is."

"Wait, Pep's in town and she didn't even bother to say hello to me?" Tony asked and didn't even try to hide his affront.

"She did," Bruce said, his gaze focused back on the TV. "She stopped by before, but you were taking your usual afternoon nap."

Tony grumbled a bit. Fuck, being pregnant sucked.

"I didn't know you two were so _palsy_ ," he said, and no, he totally did not sound catty at all.

Natasha checked her phone and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans. "Sure. We got along back when I worked at SI, and now that you're out of the picture, we get along even better."

"See! I knew it was me," he said and looked to Steve for confirmation. Steve just raised an eyebrow at him but said nothing, and Natasha rolled her eyes and headed for the elevator.

"Gotta get going. She and Hill are going to have my ass if I'm late again."

Tony turned around in his seat to watch after her. "Wait, Hill's going, too? Is this some sort of girls' night?"

He felt Barton, Bruce, and Steve all set their sights on him, and Natasha just looked at him in slight confusion and said, "Why?"

"Uh, you're having a girls' night, and you didn't even think to invite me?"

"Not a real girl, Stark," Barton said and turned his attention back to the TV. Tony turned on him.

"OK, first of all, that is a terrible attitude to take toward _anyone_ struggling with their identity, and you know what? Fuck you, I could be a real girl. I mean, technically I _am_ a real girl." He smacked Steve's arm. "You can confirm that. Tell them I'm a real girl."

Steve just heaved a sigh and said, " _Tony_ …"

"Physically, I'm a real girl," he corrected. "I've got the right parts and, oh, yeah, there's the little matter of me being _preg—_ Er… _you know_ ," he said, unable to get the actual word out.

"But you still think of yourself as a man," Bruce said. "A man in a woman's body."

"Whatever," he said, breezing past Bruce's statement. "This is discrimination! I'm being discriminated against!"

"Yeah, sure, Stark," Barton said with a laugh. "You wait here, and I'll go call up the local NOW chapter."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Way to be supportive. Seriously, Barton, don't procreate."

"Tony," Bruce said, "I think Nat probably just wants to hang out with Pepper and Hill without—"

But Natasha just smiled at him and said, "Tony, do you want to come with us?"

He took a glance around at Barton and Bruce, who were both being jerks about the whole thing, and then Steve, who was being suspiciously quiet about it all, and jumped up from the couch.

"Yes, I would! I'm getting a headache from all the reactionary testosterone in here. I don't know how you can stand it."

He marched over to the elevator to meet up with Natasha, and she shrugged a little and said, "You get used to it," as she hit the button.

"Oh, also?" Tony said and turned back to the others. "When I get back, I firmly expect two of you to have retired to either your own floors or the communal floor. This is mine and Steve's. I'm not sure why the rest of you spend so much of your time here."

"Cap's idea," Barton said without turning around. "Said it would build morale and team spirit and all that shit if we spent all our time together. Blame him."

"You know, I don't recall saying it like that," Steve said. "And I don't recall saying we should spend _all_ our time together."

"Eh, you're old. Your memory's failing you," Barton said with a shrug. "Besides, pretty sure when I got the grand tour of this place back when we all first moved in, this was explicitly stated go be the communal floor."

"Yeah?" Tony said as the elevator doors opened — and come to think of it, shouldn't the car have already been there? Unless JARVIS was doing it on purpose again. He shrugged off his concern and stepped onto the car, Natasha right behind him. "Well, clearly your eyesight is the only decent sense you possess. Your hearing sucks if that's what you heard."

"You told Cap he was allowed to hang out up here any time he wanted. Figured the same held true for the rest of us. I mean _now_ I understand it was only because you wanted to get in his pants, but I figure why change things?"

"You ever heard the phrase 'overstaying your—'"

He was stopped from saying anything more by Natasha, who put her hand over his mouth and said, "You can argue later. We have to stop and get you something appropriate to wear before we go."

He looked down at his purple tank top and black yoga pants as Natasha dropped her hand from his mouth. "Why? What's wrong with this?"

"We're going to the club, _solnyshko_ , not the coffee shop," she said and hit the button for her floor.

"Wait, _club?_ " he heard Steve ask as the doors began to close, panic lacing in his voice, and just as the doors slid closed, he watched as Steve turned around to look in his direction.

Tony grimaced a little, his muted reflection staring back at him from the steel doors of the elevator. "Uh oh. I thought he knew that's where we're— What the hell are you doing?" he asked and turned to watch Natasha type away on her phone, her fingers working furiously over the screen. "Warning the other two about me?"

Natasha glanced up at him and offered him a small smile. "Actually, you have no idea how excited they both are."

Tony made a face at that. "They're not going to make me wear frilly shit and get frilly drinks all night, are they? I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm totally intrigued by the idea of a girls' night, and I'd like to see how one really goes down, but they both know I'm still a guy, right?"

"Are you?" Natasha asked without even bothering with the courtesy of a glance in his direction, her tone so neutral Tony didn't know what to read into it.

He also didn't know how to answer that because he _did_ still think of himself as a man, and he understood he was currently in possession of a woman's body, but it was... It was getting harder and harder to find where the male part of him ended and the female part of him began. The line of demarcation was not as clearly delineated now as it had been a month or so earlier.

He opted to say nothing, which seemed to be answer enough for Natasha.

~*~

"And you're _sure_ no one's going to recognize me?"

Natasha just pursed her lips and raised her eyebrow at him as the cab pulled up to the curb. "Trust me," she said and swiped her card to pay for the ride, "no one's going to know it's you."

"I wouldn't have known it was you unless you told me," Pepper said from his other side, and Hill glanced back at him from where she sat in the front seat and nodded her head at him.

He kind of wondered who had been the one to inform Hill of this whole mess, but at the same time, he didn't care. He was just glad she did know and it was someone else for his side.

As Natasha pressed the buttons to confirm the cost and add the tip, the driver stole a quick glance at Tony in the rear-view mirror. Tony, hiding behind a pair of sunglasses per usual, stared right back at eyes that he could tell were trying to figure him out, and he was just about to say something catty and snappy when Natasha popped her door open and grabbed his wrist.

"Come on," she said and gave him a tug.

They exited, Tony wobbling some on heels that had been borrowed from Hill, and he shook Natasha's hand off his wrist then grappled onto her arm as tight as he could. She met his gaze for only a moment before she looked down and caught sight of the way his legs shook in uneasy balance.

"How do you even walk in these things?" he muttered over the booming sound of the music leaking out of the club's walls.

"Practice," Hill said and strode ahead to lead the way. "Lots and lots of practice."

There was a line to get in that stretched down the block, but Hill led them over to the bouncer, met his gaze, then nodded her head toward the other three behind her. He took a quick glance over the other three, nodded, then unhooked the rope to allow them entrance. They filed through, one after the other, Tony grimacing as he did his best to strut in his borrowed stilettos, the booming sound now reverberating off the walls around them.

"Wouldn't a nice neighborhood bar or a coffee shop be much more fun?" he asked over the noise, and Natasha snorted a laugh and said, "You're not that old, Stark."

"Yeah, well, look, I did the club thing," he said as they climbed a set of steps — steps, fucking _steps_ in stilettos — "when I was younger." He continued to clutch tight to Natasha's arm to keep his balance. "But that was only 'cause I thought I was supposed to enjoy it. I never actually _did_."

"We're _not_ coming here for a hookup," Natasha explained as they arrived at the top. "Just a girls' night to talk about stuff like boys and work and kill counts."

Tony blinked and glanced at her. "You don't _really_ talk about kill counts, do you?"

She just tugged him over in the direction Pepper and Hill had gone in. "Relax," she said but didn't deny the question.

Hill led them over to an open table that sat overlooking the dance floor down below, and as they settled onto their chairs, Hill waved off the wait staff that had come over to take their drink order and said, "I get my own booze at these places," once the waiter had left.

Pepper and Natasha nodded their agreement, the three of them turning their eyes on Tony, not to judge but to make him understand…something.

"What? Why?" he asked and looked between all three.

"Meat market, Stark," Natasha said. "Don't know who to trust here."

"So…then why come?"

"Half-price cosmos," Pepper explained with a shrug, and Hill nodded her agreement then grabbed her purse and said, "I've got first round. What do you want?"

Both Pepper and Natasha put their orders in for one of those half-price cosmos, and Tony frowned and suddenly wished he'd thought twice about agreeing to come to someplace like this. He'd been dry for well over a year now, but he knew there would always be that urge in him to have just _one little drink_. After all, one little drink wouldn't hurt, would it?

Being pregnant at least helped stem some of the desire — not because he craved it any less but because he knew he couldn't have any. He was not that awful a human being that he would chance fucking this kid up before it was even born, no matter how…unorthodox its existence even was. Plus, Steve would outright kill him if he ever did anything like that. OK, Steve wouldn't _literally_ kill him, but the slow-burning anger and the cold shoulder he'd suffer from his better half would be a much worse fate.

"Just get me a coke," he muttered and sat back against his chair, folding his arms tight over his chest.

Hill nodded and turned to leave, and Tony called after her, "Make sure they put some fruit in it! And one of those little straws! Make it look like a real drink!"

He huffed out a breath and turned back to look at both Pepper and Natasha, who were staring at him, Pepper with a perplexed look on her face while Natasha appeared like she was trying not to laugh at something dumb but precious he'd done.

"What?" he snapped at both of them.

Natasha just nodded at his chest. "Nice cleavage, Stark."

He glanced down and saw that the way he'd folded his arms had both framed and pushed up his breasts, making them much more prominent than they'd been, even with the low-cut, short-sleeved button-down he'd borrowed from Pepper.

"Are you taking lessons from Barton now? They're breasts, Romanoff, and I don't have as much practice dealing with them as you do. Besides, it wasn't my idea to wear something that leaves so little to the imagination."

Natasha arched an eyebrow. "You didn't put up a fight over wearing it."

He bristled some and stared at her, and she arched her eyebrow a little higher, if that was even possible, daring him to counter her. Which... Yeah, OK, but so what? There was nothing wrong with it, and besides, he thought it might be...fun for a change. Or something. There was nothing wrong with trying out a tight blouse and a tight pair of jeans.

"I can't believe I'm about to say this," Pepper said, and Tony broke his staring contest with Natasha to focus on her, "but I'm actually a little jealous."

"What? How? Why?"

Pepper made a face. "I think you're a more attractive woman than I am."

He scoffed and rolled his eyes. "No, I'm not," he said, but Natasha nodded her agreement.

"You still look like our Tony. We can see it. But you're very classically beautiful. It's almost like that goddess purposely made you into what western society has historically determined to be what's most physically attractive in a woman."

He just twitched his mouth from side-to-side and reached up to scratch the side of his neck. "I think you're both full of shit and you're trying to make me feel better. Look, can we start by not focusing so much on what I look like? How 'bout we concentrate more on my abilities and talents and what's on the inside?"

Pepper and Natasha exchanged looks before they both snorted out laughs. "What?"

Natasha reached out and put her hand on his arm. "Nothing," she said and gave it a squeeze. "You just voiced the complaint of pretty much every single woman since the dawn of the modern era."

"Oh, god," he muttered. "It's too late for me, isn't it? I'm not just physically a woman, am I?"

Natasha patted his arm. "You're whatever you want to be, honey. We'll support you no matter what."

He nodded and tweaked a smile at her pronouncement then frowned as he realized that, like clockwork, he had to pee. Again.

He sat up and glanced around the club and, trying to see through the neon and flashing lights, said, "Uh, they have a bathroom around here?"

Pepper frowned and sat up as well, like she'd just been put on alert. "Why? Are you OK? Are you sick? Do you need to leave?"

"What? No. I just… Not that it's any of your business, but I just…have to empty my bladder, all right?"

"He has to pee," Natasha translated, and Pepper rolled her eyes and said, "Why didn't he just say so?" She leveled a firm look at him and added, "Tony, we've known each other for how long? We dated. You don't have to be so—"

"Well, I'm not sure how comfortable you girls are with sharing that kind of information with each other."

Natasha just stared at him point-blank. "We talk about periods."

He made a face and tried not to think about that, and he made a ' _yech_ ' sound but didn't actually vocalize a word beyond that.

"Don't worry," Natasha said and patted his arm again. "You don't turn back after all this goes down, we'll clue you in. There's a lot about it we probably have to catch you up on."

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," he said and hopped off the chair. The hell he was ever, ever going to have to worry about anything like _that_.

It had been a while since Tony had done the club thing, so he was a little out of practice, and he'd forgotten how deplorable the whole thing could be when you were single and desperate for a hook-up. He tried to be polite as could be as he stumbled his way through the crowd to get to the bathrooms — fuck, he'd never had to pee so much in his life as he had the past couple of months — and he gritted his teeth as someone bumped into him and splashed their drink on him.

He didn't miss the lecherous looks he'd gotten from a good half-a-dozen men that he knew were just looking for something to stick it in for a night (hey, he'd been there when he was young, horny, and desperate), and he swore one of them 'accidentally' brushed up against him just to grab a feel his ass.

Without thinking, and because he hadn't actually been out in public in close to two months, he made his way over to the men's room and was just about to put his hand on the door to push through when someone beside him said, "Where do you think you're going?"

He turned and met the gaze of what he took to be a middle-aged stock broker with a wife out in Jersey.

"What? Does everyone need to know my business?" he asked without thinking, his tone admittedly a bit snappish, but the guy just nodded at the door and said, "This is the men's room."

He startled a bit and looked at the door. Yes, that was definitely a little man figure on the door, and he glanced down at his rather visible cleavage — and so did the stock broker — and said, "Oh, yeah, right."

"Had a few too many?"

"No, I just got here."

"Oh. Oh, well, you know," the guy said and leaned against the wall beside the door, "if you want, we could always see about getting a _private_ bathroom for just the two of us." He grinned a little. "How does a suite at the Four Seasons sound?"

"Overpriced," he said without thinking, and the guy laughed.

"Ah, don't worry," he said with a wink. "Pocket change. You look like the type of woman that likes to be taken care of, and I could take care of you _real nice_."

He reached out to run a light hand down Tony's arm, and Tony watched this maneuver then looked up at him. "Are you hitting on me?"

He quirked his lips into slight amusement and crowded Tony just the slightest bit. He was probably as tall as Steve, but not as broad. Or attractive. "You cannot tell me a gorgeous creature like you hasn't been hit on before," he said, and Tony presumed he was trying for 'suave' but he was more coming off 'smarmy.' "You're probably fighting 'em off with a stick."

_Or an armored metal suit that shoots lasers._

But he just forced a smile at the guy and said, "Yeah, they, uh, they don't know when to quit."

The guy crowded him some more and reached out to rest a hand at Tony's hip. Tony tried to pull away from him — seriously, what in the _fuck?_ — but his back hit against the wall, and the guy rested his other hand at Tony's other hip and pushed right up against him.

"You," the guy said, dipping his head to murmur the words close to his ear, "are the most beautiful thing I've ever seen come into this place. And I've been coming here a long time."

Tony snorted a laugh. "You don't say?" he mused, and the guy dug his fingers into Tony's hips almost like he was trying to claim him. He gasped out a breath and put his hands to either of the guy's shoulders and said, "Yeah, I don't think so, buddy," and tried to push him off.

The guy just laughed, using his strength against Tony as he just pushed right back, holding him against the wall by his hips. "Not an exhibitionist, huh?"

"Not _interested_ ," he said, gritting out the words as he shoved against the guy again. He could feel the guy's growing interest pressing into his pelvis, and bile began to creep up into his throat at the thought of what that meant — or could mean for him if he wasn't careful.

But the guy just hummed, some disgustingly intrigued smile on his face, as he said, "Mmm...a fighter. I like your kind. Like the kind that makes me work for it."

"Yeah? Swell. Get your goddamned hands off of me," he said and shoved against the guy one more time.

But he just laughed, evidently thinking this was some sort of game, and said, "Say the magic word."

" _Rape_."

The guy scoffed a bit. "Yeah? Dressed like this?" he said and took a noticeable glance down at Tony's cleavage, rubbing his hands against the tightly-clad denim of his hips. "No one would believe you weren't asking for it."

Tony stopped pushing against him to gawk instead. Had he really just said—

"Because I'm wearing a low-cut shirt and a tight pair of jeans? Are you fucking kidding me? Maybe I just like the way they look on me."

Though there was still an element of playfulness there, a sliver of something hard and dark and maybe even a touch domineering slipped into the guy's gaze. "Maybe you're just a troublemaker," he said.

Tony didn't back down. The fuck he would. He was fucking Iron Man. Well, no, he was actually fucking Captain America, but he _was_ Iron Man.

"Maybe I just came here after work with some friends to relax and unwind and got bushwhacked by some sleazebucket that thinks I have any interest in letting him stick it in me."

Something in the guy's slate-gray eyes flashed, like he'd just been let in on a little secret had by Tony. "Oh," he said with a slight nod, "so that's what your deal is."

"Excuse me?"

"You're not a dyke—"

" _Excuse me?_ "

"—you just need a good, stiff _fuck_ to loosen up that tight snatch of yours. Let me guess: one of those _career_ girls that never had time for a man."

"To a degree," he said then wondered why he was even bothering to listen to anything this dick was saying.

"Yeah," he said and rubbed his hands up and down from Tony's hips to his waist and back again. "Don't get off much, do you, unless it's handheld and vibrates."

For some reason, he thought of Steve's hard, thick cock in his hand at that — the other night when he'd jerked Steve off again and actually been very, very close to sucking him off if only that stupid nausea hadn't fucked it up for him. Look, he did like having Steve's cock in his mouth, all right? He liked the weight, liked the girth, liked the feel of it, and liked how used he felt once Steve was done with him.

He shook his head to rid himself of that image if only so that the next time he had Steve's thick, red cock in his hand, he wasn't immediately brought back to this moment.

"Yep, you got me," he said and put his hands to the guy's shoulders again and tried to shove him off. "Now, if you would be so kind as to get out of my way—"

"I'm serious," the guy said, pushing even closer, if that was possible, rolling his hips some and breathing the words into Tony's ear. "I know how to make my partners feel _real_ good. Nice and well-fucked and begging for more."

Tony grunted and, from some wellspring deep within, found the strength to shove the guy off of him, startling the loser as he stumbled back a little and fell into someone that had just exited the men's room.

Tony pulled himself away from the wall and made sure to stand so that he had an escape route if need be, and he put his hands to his hips and looked at the creep that he was about five seconds away from kicking in the balls. Literally. He was really about to do it, and he was sure it wouldn't be to a more deserving fellow.

"OK, serious question here: What makes you think I'm even interested in you? I mean, I get that this is the type of place you normally go to for cheap and sleazy hookups, but what about our conversation has led you to believe I am in any way even remotely attracted to you? You're clearly on the other end of forty, which I am honestly _not_ opposed to — seriously, my fiancé is probably over twice your age — but you didn't even have the decency to take your wedding ring off, and you haven't been able to pull your eyes away from my tits for more than five seconds at a time. For all you know, I'm on my way to take a massive dump, and you're here trying to get in my pants while all I can think about is that maybe dairy doesn't agree with me as much as I want it to."

The guy just stood there a moment, staring like he was trying to make sense of what had just happened, and he blinked a few times before he narrowed his eyes, his mouth formed into a scowl

"Good luck getting anyone to stick it in your cold, shriveled cunt, you bitch."

Tony jerked back in slight surprise as the guy shoulder-checked him. Hard. He stumbled a bit but caught himself against the same damned wall that had almost been his undoing, and he rubbed his shoulder where it throbbed from being hit and said, "Well, that was uncalled for."

And not even close to true. In fact, he knew a certain super soldier that could attest to the fact that not only was it _not_ cold but it wasn't shriveled, either. Fucking prick.

And Steve would _gladly_ stick it in him. All he had to do was say the word.

He shivered and pushed the entirety of the last five minutes out of his mind, and he walked down the hallway just a tad to see that, true to every stereotype he'd ever been aware of (or anything he'd ever heard Pepper say), there was a line out the door for the women's restroom. Of course not the men's room, but the women's room? Oh, sure, he was going to be waiting here a good twenty minutes probably. Fuck, he hoped his bladder could hold out that long.

He sighed and took his place in line and waited, and for some reason, he expected for someone to point and say he wasn't actually a woman and he had no business in using that bathroom, but he was able to get in and do his business without one word said to him and barely a look sent in his direction.

Also, women's bathrooms, as it turned out, a lot cleaner than men's. Still a mess to be had, he supposed, but in a different way.

It was as he was exiting the restroom when some Long Island Lothario sidled up alongside him, drink in hand, hair a little too slicked, and wearing way too much cologne. He tweaked a smile and tried to step to the side of him, but the guy just stepped to the same side with a grin. Tony forced another smile then tried to step to the other side only to be blocked by the lecher yet again. Jesus Christ, _another one?_ He gritted his teeth at him in a fierce smile, and, not wanting to cause any problems, said, "Excuse me. I'm trying to get back to my friends."

The lecher made like he hadn't realized he'd been causing him any problem and said, "Oh, sorry. Didn't mean to get in your way."

He stepped aside and made a sweeping motion with his hand, and Tony smiled at him but couldn't help think to himself, _Wasting your time, bub. I've got a sexy super-soldier at home waiting for me_.

But he bypassed the guy and made it a few steps before some weird sixth sense came over him, and he realized there was someone following him. He turned back around to see the Long Island Lothario following about two steps behind. He grinned at him and said, "Well, I guess we're going the same direction."

"Isn't that a coincidence?" he muttered then turned back and exhaled a breath. Jesus Christ, he was not in the mood to deal with this. Again. He tried to find his way through the crowd and tried to remember which stupid level of the club their table was on, but he could _feel_ that son-of-a-bitch still following him, and fuck, what he wouldn't give to be able to pull a repulsor on the guy. Just one, and not one he would fire, but just one that might give this guy — or any other bastard that was looking to corner him on the way to and from the bathroom — the hint to back off.

He made it across the club with no sign of the table or the other three, and he rolled his eyes and glanced around. What the hell? Wasn't it back this way? The lights were down, so it was kind of hard to see, and the thumping music was so loud as to be distracting.

Fuck, was he getting old? It was Steve, wasn't it? It was Steve's old man influence on him. And in him. The fetus was probably giving off some sort of old-man energy, too.

"Lost?"

He spun around to see his over-seasoned friend standing beside him, and Tony sighed a little and said, "No, just…checking things out."

He laughed like he didn't believe him. "Sure. Come on," he said and made a motion to put his arm around Tony's shoulder, but Tony ducked away quickly and said, "Look, save your breath and your time. I'm seeing someone."

"Is he here?" the guy asked, seemingly undeterred.

"What makes you think it's a 'he'?"

He just laughed. "Please. You're no carpet-muncher. Not looking like that."

He motioned over Tony's body and made no effort to hide the fact that he was totally imagining what it looked like beneath the layers, and Tony just marveled at him and murmured, "We're all pigs, aren't we?"

"Huh?"

He shook his head. "Nothing." He made a noticeable glance in a direction and said, "Oh! There they are." He glanced back and added, "Maybe knock off the derogatory dude-bro terminology and you might be able to get yourself a girl that doesn't have one of those little inflation nozzles somewhere on her."

And then, before the guy could retaliate in any way, he ducked away and made his way through the crowd.

After wobbling wandering around in goddamned stilettos for another five minutes, he finally came upon the table, and he settled down onto his chair and said, "Did you guys move or something?"

"No, this is the table we we've been at for at least half-an-hour now," Pepper said. "You got lost, didn't you?"

"Uh, I'm not exactly familiar with the layout of this place, plus, it's dark and noisy—"

The other three groaned, and Natasha looked at him pointedly and said, "You're not _that_ old, Stark."

"No, it's 'cause he usually has JARVIS telling him where to go," Pepper said and took a sip of her cocktail, and Tony looked upon her in insult.

"Hey! I am a fucking _genius_ when it comes to directions, all right? And can I help it if this place is so poorly designed? Look, let's hope a fire doesn't break out while we're here, because I'm telling you right now, we're not going to make it, and let's hope we pass out from smoke inhalation before the flames get to us."

Pepper just looked between Hill and Natasha and said, "Always a ray of sunshine, isn't he?"

The other two hummed their responses into their drinks, and Tony rolled his eyes and said, "Whatever. Can't say I didn't warn you," and picked up his soda. "Also," he said and swirled the ice around with the swizzle stick, "fuck all of you and your cocktails."

Pepper frowned and set her drink down. "Maybe a club wasn't the best place to bring you—"

"No, no, it's fine," he said and sipped his soda through the swizzle stick. "I avoid any place that serves alcohol, it _really_ limits the number of places I can go. Besides, I've been dry for, what, a year now? I don't really resent any of you. I'm just being ornery."

The three exchanged glances again, and Natasha looked knowingly at the other two and said, "Hormones."

The other two hummed their agreement, and Tony rolled his eyes. "Look, it is not just—"

"Oh! There you are. I was wondering where you disappeared to."

Tony grit his teeth and didn't even hide the fact that he was rolling his eyes, and the other three all glanced to the loser standing behind Tony rather than to Tony himself.

"Didn't I tell you to buzz off?" he asked and glanced back at the over-marinated annoyance.

"Nah, that's not what I heard," he said and put his hand to the back of Tony's chair. "Just that you were looking for your friends, whom I see you appear to have found."

Tony glanced back and watched as the guy ran an appraising eye over Natasha and said, "You look familiar."

Natasha just raised an eyebrow at the guy, who snapped his fingers and pointed at her.

"You modeled in Tokyo!" He grinned at Natasha, but the motion came off as sleazy. "Yeah, I saw those pics."

"Got intimately familiar with his hand to them, too," Hill muttered into her drink.

"Wait, you _really_ modeled in Tokyo?" Tony asked and turned to Natasha. "That wasn't just part of your— _ow!_ Goddamn, Charlie horse!"

He leaned down and rubbed his shin where Natasha had slammed her foot into it, and the guy put his hand on Tony's back and said, "Hey, you know what's good for that?"

"Punching you in the junk?" he muttered as he rubbed his shin, but clearly he wasn't loud enough because the guy just said, "Give me five minutes on the floor. I'll rock your world."

He sat up and went to protest, but Natasha glared at him and said like she was trying to keep her temper, "Honey? Is there something you want to tell me?"

He blinked and went to ask what her game was, but she just winked at him coyly enough that it would have gone over the other guy's head and said, annoyance lacing her voice, "I thought it was just about you and me tonight? Isn't that what you said back at the house?"

He went to stammer out a response of some kind when Natasha put her hand to the back of his neck and practically purred, "Let me remind you what you have to look forward to," and pressed her lips against his, warm and soft and inviting. Tony squeaked out in surprise, but even to his own ear, it sounded like a slight moan, and he closed his eyes and went with it, hoping it would drive home the message that Natasha intended.

And hoping that Steve never, ever found out about it. Fuck, if there was one thing he could say for Natasha, the woman knew how to kiss like she meant it. Of course, that just meant he couldn't lord over Steve that kiss he and Natasha had shared back during that whole mess with SHIELD any longer.

Unfortunately, the yutz didn't seem to get the message, and Tony heard him say, "Now there's a sandwich I wouldn't mind being in the middle of." Natasha broke the kiss, slow and languid and with a smile on her face, and Tony tried to return it, but when he couldn't quite manage it, Natasha frowned at him and said, "Was that not good enough?"

"Oh, no, it was— _eumph_ —"

He was stopped from saying anything more by Natasha's mouth on his again, but this time, she'd leaned over and grabbed his face with both hands, crushing their mouths together and using his surprise to slip her tongue into his mouth. She moved her hands from his face down his neck and then over his breasts, and he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to look as into it as he possibly could as Natasha groped his breasts, pushing herself against him as she plundered his mouth with her tongue. Before he knew it, Natasha had crawled onto his lap and was straddling him, and she broke the kiss and grinned down at him, her hands moving from his breasts down over his abdomen and toward his pelvis.

"Hmm…" she said with a predatory smile, "I'm going to do something special for you tonight." She reached down into the tight, hot gap between their legs and made like she was stroking him.

Thankfully, she was not.

"I'm going to fist you tonight," she purred, her tone like smooth, liquid gold. "Would you like that, baby? Would you like me to fist you? You've been after me to do it for a while now."

Natasha ducked her head and began to make like she was sucking at the side of Tony's neck, and Tony… Tony…

God help him, there was a part of him that was feeling very, _very_ good right about now that wanted to see how far Natasha would go.

He felt the burn of attraction begin to flush his face, and he tipped his head back and blinked to try to clear his head as Natasha moved her mouth from his neck down to his collarbone and— Oh, god, that was his breast. Was she sucking a fucking hickey onto his breast? How the fuck was he supposed to explain _that_ to Steve?

He cleared his throat and put hands on her shoulders to try to push her away. The lothario hadn't budged an inch, and out of the corner of his eye, Tony could see their little play-act was doing nothing but enticing him all the more.

"Honey?" he said, his voice a little wobbly, "we're in public. Maybe you should tone down the PDAs, huh?"

Natasha just nipped at the skin on the top of his breast, pulling a slight yelp out of him, and she hummed a little and moved her lips to the middle of his breastbone and said, "I just want people to know who you belong to." She sat back upright and put her arms over Tony's shoulders and clasped her hands behind his neck and added, "I don't like people trying to take my stuff away from me."

Wait, was she making fun of him and Steve?

"Now, tell your little boyfriend over there to take a hike. You're coming home with me tonight. And me alone."

Tony glanced up to the half-hard voyeur that was doing nothing to hide his obvious attraction and said, "You heard what the lady said."

He just nodded, staring at them like he'd blown a fuse, before he said, "Yeah, uh—" He coughed. "Excuse me."

He bid a hasty retreat, and like the flip of a switch, Natasha had slid off his lap and taken her seat once again, sipping at her cosmo like the last few minutes hadn't happened. Tony just swallowed and tried to fix the clothes Natasha had pulled askew during her little act, and Pepper was blinking and pressing her hands to her pink-tinged cheeks as she said, "I'm suddenly questioning everything I had ever assumed about myself."

Hill merely shrugged and picked up her drink. "I'm not," she said blandly and took a sip, and Tony couldn't tell if that implied that she already knew she found the image of two women fondling each other enticing or it hadn't done a thing for her.

And, wait, _Pepper_ had been turned on by that?

"How are— You— You're already— How were you able to— You actually looked like you wanted—" Pepper sputtered, directing her attention to Natasha, who just shrugged.

"It's just part of the mission," she explained like it was an everyday occurrence to her. She then turned to Tony and said, "Sorry, Stark. You're just not my type no matter what body you're in."

"Duly noted," he said, his voice distant, and he was all-the-more thankful Natasha _hadn't_ been stroking him when she'd had her hand between his legs. At first he'd thought it was because that was just a boundary he wasn't comfortable crossing with her. Now…

As Natasha swiped away at her phone like she was texting someone — probably that asshole Barton — he whipped out his phone and sent a text to Steve:

_«Babe, I'm going to need you to do something for me when I get home. So don't go to sleep, k?»_

He didn't want to think about the fact that he would have been OK with Natasha doing it to him, too. Well, in theory. He supposed. Could Steve watch?

 _«Business or pleasure?»_ Steve texted back.

 _«Pleasure. Holy fuck pleasure.»_ Then he added, before Steve could begin to imagine anything bad, _«The girls were talking about something, and I maybe kind of want to try it.»_

The only thing he got in reply was a simple, 'OK,' and he stared at it a moment and wondered what it meant. 'OK you're a freak, I'm not touching you'? 'OK sounds good. I can schedule you in'? 'OK I can imagine what you mean and I'm going to start without you. Buy some lotion on your way home'?

He jumped when he saw another soda with citrus slices and a swizzle stick set in front of him, and he looked up to see his Long Island Lothario setting down another cosmo in front of Natasha. He grabbed a chair from another table and pulled it up to theirs and sat down, hunching close to Tony, and said, "You know, you ladies, if you were ever looking to maybe—"

But Hill scowled at him and said, "Hey, buddy, why don't you go drip your flop sweat onto someone else for a while?" but ingenuity suddenly struck, and Tony shook his head and said a quick, " _No!_ " then turned to the guy and smiled some more and said a softer, "No, no, you know what?" He reached out and brushed his fingertips against the guy's arm. "I like the cut of your jib. And the cut of your jaw," he said and motioned to the guy's…rather weak jaw, if he was being honest. Well, weak compared to Steve's, but then, most guys' were.

"Honey," Natasha said, a low, warning note in her voice, "what are you doing?"

But Tony just turned to her and winked as he said, "Trust me," then turned back to the leech. "Wanna dance? I want to."

The guy just grinned and stood up, taking hold of Tony's hand to lead the way down the steps and toward the dance floor. Tony grit his teeth and tried to walk without stumbling too much, and he made it down the steps and to the hot, sweaty floor without making too much of an idiot out of himself.

One thing Tony could honestly say was that he had never been a fan of the pump-and-grind kind of dance that was popular at these sorts of places. Sure, he'd done it, when he was strutting his stuff and flashing his feathers as a young, stupid kid. But he was in his forties now, and he was settled and had a fiancé that was older than the Charleston, and the most dancing he'd done as of late was slow dancing to ballads with a super soldier from the '40s. And to be honest, he liked that kind of dancing more. Nowadays, anyway. Maybe it was the intimacy of it or maybe it was because it was a hell of a lot classier or maybe it was just because it was Steve and he was wont to make all sorts of excuses when it came to Steve.

So a pump-and-grind on a hot, sweaty, poorly-lit dance floor to music that was making his ears bleed was not exactly the sort of thing he'd call 'fun.' Not anymore. But he still grit his teeth and tried to pretend he was into it as his 'dance partner' pushed close to him, grinding their bodies together as he pushed his dick into Tony's hip. Clearly the guy was trying to entice him, show off to him, make him want to take that in him any way he could get it, but he'd had a semi-erect dick pushed into his hip not all that long ago, and this one, through the fabric of the man's denim jeans…was not anything to write home about.

Look, the guy couldn't help it. It was what he was born with. But come on! This guy was clearly, firmly in the 'size doesn't count' column — he'd have to be with that pencil-dick — and Tony would have given him the benefit of the doubt if the man wasn't such a clear and total tool. Who was he trying to impress with that thing?

But Tony just steeled himself and pushed forward with his plan, reaching over to mouth by the man's ear (and yes, the man was actually a little shorter than he was with his heels on), "I didn't want to say it in front of the others, but my girlfriend and I have been looking for someone to join us for a while now."

The guy just grinned at him and pushed even closer. If Tony was being honest, the guy was practically dry-humping his hip. _Ugh_.

"It's just… It's tough to find someone that understands our… _unique_ situation."

The guy put his hand to Tony's abdomen, and something harsh and cold seized him and screamed through his veins — almost like the exact opposite feeling to when Steve put his hand there. He shivered and pushed past it and said, "You seem like just the kind of man for us."

He grinned and tried to kiss him, but Tony pulled his head back and said, "I think I should probably explain something."

"Nah, don't worry about it," the guy said and tried to kiss him again, but Tony pulled away once more and said, "It's important."

"Later, baby. Or do you want to leave now?"

"Well, we can, but I still think I need to tell you I used to be a guy. Still am, in a way."

But he just continued to grind against him, and Tony realized he hadn't heard him, especially when the guy said, "What?"

"I used to be a dude," he repeated, and the guy snorted a laugh and said, "The fuck you were. Not with a rack like this."

He reached up and cupped his hands under Tony's breasts and gave them a squeeze, and Tony actually felt a little bit of bile creep up in his throat at that. Jesus fuck, they weren't _all_ like this, were they?

But he just hummed a little, reaching up to pull the bastard's hands away, and said, "Well, you get what you pay for. And clearly, I shelled out the _good_ money. They feel real, don't they? Like I was born with them." He shook his head. "I wasn't."

Which, technically, wasn't a lie.

"I've, uh, kind of been undergoing gender-reassignment surgery the past couple years. Haven't quite finished yet. In fact, still got my cock." He then pushed as close as he could to the guy and breathed up against his ear, purring the words, " _Wanna see?_ "

The guy stopped cold, and he pulled back a little and directed his gaze down to Tony's crotch, like he was perhaps trying to see the outline of hidden junk. But Tony just grinned and said, "It's called 'tucking,' big boy. So, do you want to be in the middle? I know how to treat my bottoms _real nice_."

But the guy just let his gaze run up and down Tony's body a couple times, almost like he was trying to see if he was telling the truth or not, and he swallowed and opened and closed his mouth a couple times then scratched the back of his head and said, "Yeah, you know what? I just realized. I got an early day tomorrow. Got a big project I gotta work on, so you know what? Why don't I, uh… Why don't we… Yeah, I'll see you around."

He turned and made his way off the floor, striding away from Tony as fast as he could get, and Tony grinned and glanced up to the floor above where the other three had been watching him the entire time, and he made a motion as though to say, _What did I tell you? I'm a fucking genius_ , to the girls' applause and accolades.

His feet were beginning to ache — fucking stilettos — but he still pulled himself back up to the upper level and stumbled back over to the table, grimacing and trying to keep as much pressure off the most sensitive part of his feet as possible. He sat down in his chair in a huff and went to reach for his soda, only realizing at the last second that the one he'd grabbed had come from the guy he'd just chased off.

"I shouldn't drink this, should I?" he asked the girls, who all shook their heads. "Right, yeah," he said and set it down to pick up the one Hill had gotten for him earlier.

"What'd you tell him?" Hill asked, glass to her lips.

Tony grinned and swirled his drink with his swizzle stick. "The truth, basically."

"And that is?" Natasha asked.

"That I used to be a man. Although, I did tell one lie. Told him I still had my cock."

Pepper's eyes went comically wide, and Tony saw three empty glasses by her left hand. Evidently, she was far from her first cocktail of the night. " _Do you?_ " she asked like she equal parts couldn't believe it and kind of wanted to see it.

He sighed and sat back in his chair. "Sadly, no. This body is one hundred percent female, which is great for some things and horrible for others. I can't pee standing up, but holy shit, I thought people — and by 'people' I mean 'science' — exaggerated that women have better phalangeal dexterity than men, but turns out, it's totally true. I may not be as strong physically, but working on stuff is _so_ much easier, especially getting into small, tight spaces that require a lot of finesse. That…is actually, like, the one thing I'll miss when this whole thing is over."

"You won't miss anything else?" Hill asked with a small, amused smirk.

"What? Getting hit on by every douchebag in the tri-state area? Having to think about how to actually hold my arms when I fold them? _Peeing sitting down?_ Seriously, you have to sit down to pee. How do you even get anything done?"

"It's not that much of a struggle," Pepper said, but her tone was amused.

"Thought you were shy about talking about that sort of stuff with us," Natasha said, and Tony rolled his eyes.

"Well, since you insist that it's all you ladies talk about."

"It's not all we talk about," Pepper said.

"Oh, I forgot. Kill counts."

Pepper just sipped her drink. "Are we talking actual kill counts or those video game competitions I hear so much about?"

Tony frowned at her, perplexed — seriously, who told her about those stupid competitions? He never had — but Natasha shrugged and said, "Eh, a little of both."

"Oh," Pepper said with an easy nod, and Tony didn't know what it said about their lives now that she could so easily accept that and not bat an eyelash at it.

Maybe he didn't want to know.

~*~

"I kissed Natasha."

Steve looked up from where he sat on the couch, tablet in hand, as Tony stepped off the elevator — shoes in hand because fuck heels — and into the living area later that night. He raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything, and Tony made a face and amended, "OK, it was more that she kissed me and I didn't really stop it because— My god, we really are pigs, aren't we? Men, I mean."

Steve exhaled a heavy breath as Tony dropped the shoes on the floor and perched on the couch cushion beside him. "What happened?" he asked like he already knew but wanted to hear the story from Tony himself, and Tony made a little face of disbelief at him.

"Nat already texted you, didn't she?"

Steve just set his tablet down on the coffee table and turned his body so that he was facing Tony. "What happened?" he reiterated without answering his question. Then again, Tony already knew the answer to that question, didn't he?

"All right, so, I'm on my way out of the bathroom — seriously, I have to pee, like, _constantly_ now; it sucks — and this over-marinated douchebag corners me and starts trying to come on to me. I duck around him, and he follows me and corners me again. I very politely tell him he's wasting his time because I've already got someone. He says, 'Is he here?' I said, 'What makes you think it's a he?' Then, you know what he says? Tells me he doesn't believe that because I don't look like a 'carpet muncher.' What the fuck? Yeah, that's the sort of sweet-talk a woman wants to hear when you're trying to get into her pants."

"Is it?" Steve asked, an amused little smile on his face. His arm propped up on the back of the couch, he extended it so he could reach out and brush his fingers against Tony's hair.

"Anyway, so I get away from him again and find the others, and I just settle back in at the table when Not-Don Juan shows back up and starts insulting me again. So, to _try_ to throw him off, Nat leans over and grabs me and kisses me. And she may have felt me up a little bit, too. But does it work? No, guy just says it's a sandwich he'd like to get in the middle of. I mean, did he _honestly_ think these lines were going to work? Fuck, it's now got me— Was _I_ that bad back in those lost years? And you! Tell me, was I that bad? When we first started going out, was I that bad? Was I making derogatory remarks and questionable innuendo?"

"Well, to be fair," Steve said and continued to stroke Tony's hair, "you still have a habit of employing questionable innuendo. But it's harmless and I think it's kind of cute because I can tell you're trying very hard."

"Fuck you! That stuff just rolls right off my tongue."

Steve just reached out with his other hand and rested it against Tony's thigh, rubbing circles into the denim-covered flesh with this thumb. "So, how'd you finally get rid of him?"

Tony made a face and sucked in a breath. "Uh, _well_ ," he said and exhaled it in a _whoosh_ , "I'm not proud of it — and don't think I'm making a habit of this — but, uh, I kind of had to hit on him."

"You had hit on him," Steve stated but didn't stop rubbing circles with his thumb.

"Yeah, he— Look, he wouldn't take a gentle hint, all right? So, I hit on him. Told him Nat and I were looking for someone to join us in a three-way and he was just our type, which—" He shivered and looked back at Steve. "Nope, sorry. I like my men tall, blonde, and buff-as-fuck."

"Thanks."

"If anything ever happens, and you revert back to the way you were before the war, I'll totally revise that to short, scrawny, and ornery."

" _Ornery?_ "

But Tony continued his story. "Anyway, so, got him on the dance floor, had to, ugh, _grind_ with him, which was just— I'm so glad these aren't my clothes, because if they were, I'd have incinerated them by now. So, anyway, he's doing that gross grinding thing against my thigh, which, ha! He's a legend in his own mind. Fucking pencil dick."

"Now, Tony, it's not the size that matters—"

"OK, that's bullshit, and everyone knows it. And you, my generously-endowed love, can afford to be, well, magnanimous about it. This fucking putz can't. So, anyway, he's fucking grinding against my thigh, and I finally get him to a point where I think he's nice and interested and, yeah, definitely turned on, and I lean up to him and say, 'I used to be a guy.' He didn't quite hear me at first and asked me to say it again, so I said, 'I used to be a dude.' He, charming fellow that he is, said, 'Not with a rack like that.'"

Steve coughed and said, "Yeah, well, uh, it _is_ a nice—"

"Yes, Steve, I know I've got a gorgeous set of tits. You can look at them later. Anyway — _Don't interrupt my story!_ — anyway, so, I winked at him and said, 'You get what you pay for.' Then I said I hadn't quite undergone _all_ my gender-reassignment surgery just yet and that I still had a cock. _Then_ I asked him if he wanted to see."

"And did he?"

Tony laughed a little. "He sort of stopped what he was doing, looked at me like he wasn't quite sure whether to believe me or not, glanced down at my crotch like he was trying to see if he could see it, so I said, 'It's called 'tucking,'' then asked him if he wanted to be in the middle. I think his brain short-circuited after that because he kind of just stood there before he stuttered out some bullshit excuse about how he had an early day tomorrow and he had some big-ass project to do, and he ran away after that."

Steve just closed his eyes and shook his head a little, but he opened them back up and said, "He didn't recognize Nat, did he?"

"Recognized her from some modeling pics she did— I thought that was some bullshit planted by Fury. I didn't think she really modeled."

"Well," Steve said and rubbed his hand up and down Tony's thigh, "so long as he didn't recognize either of you, I guess that's all I can ask for. What would you have done if he'd said he wanted to see it?"

"See what?"

"Your non-existent dick?"

Tony blew out a breath. "Oh. Well, I was kind of banking on him _not_ wanting to see it, so I didn't really have a Plan B."

Steve just nodded but said nothing, almost like he'd expected as much.

"Seriously, though, men are pigs. I mean it. I mean, _fuck_ , Nat and Pepper and Hill put up with this shit on a regular basis. I have, like, one night of it, and I'm ready to lead a rally or join the cause. I honest-to-god— I mean, it's really got me reevaluating _everything_ I've ever done in life. Was I really that bad? Was I that much of a jerk? Was I that that much of a sleaze?"

"I'm sure you weren't—"

But he shook his head. "You didn't know me back then, Steve. I was... _not_ as good a person then as I am now. And even now—"

Steve moved his hand from Tony's hair to cover Tony's mouth. "Don't even. You're a good person, Tony. Maybe you haven't always done good things, but you're a good person."

"Whatever," he muttered after Steve had dropped his hand. "But still, I was… _not_ a good person then. I was a rich playboy alcoholic with a massive ego. I… Yinsen, the guy that saved my life in Afghanistan, we met years before at a conference in Bern. He remembered me. I… Well, I didn't remember him." He laughed out a breath and said. "Fuck, if I…if I could just have one chance to go back. All I'd want to do is shake his hand and say 'thank you.' He wouldn't know what I was talking about, clearly, but… He didn't _have_ to save me — he could have let me die — and why shouldn't he have? Yeah, I was a fucking genius, but was I really worth saving?"

" _Tony_ —"

"No, Steve, you don't get it. I really was a wretch of a human being back then."

Steve's eyes hardened into something fierce and fuming. "Don't say that. Don't ever say that about yourself. Maybe you were a spoiled, trust fund brat, but you were _not_ a wretch of a human being. How could you know what the future was going to hold? _I don't mean technology_ —" he said above Tony's attempt to protest, "—I mean in your life period. How could you know Stane was going to try to have you killed in Afghanistan? How could you know someone you were too drunk to remember meeting at a conference years earlier was going to be the one to save your life? It would be one thing if this all happened to you and you didn't do anything to course-correct it. If you just kept living your life the way you had been. But you didn't. You stopped building weapons. You stopped drinking. You converted your company's mission to clean and renewable energies and technological advancements. You became the hero you were always meant to be — even without your suit. You gave a bunch of wayward souls a home. You're right. I don't know that Tony Stark, and I never will because he doesn't exist anymore. But I know this Tony Stark — this amazing, wonderful, brilliant man — and, god help me, I'm in love with this Tony Stark with all his neuroses and all his eccentricities, and nothing he says is ever going to get me to change my mind that he is _always_ worth saving."

He glanced away from Steve's sharp gaze and blinked a batch of tears down his cheeks. He reached up and brushed them away, and Steve murmured, "Jeez, I didn't mean to make you cry."

He shook his head. "No, you didn't," he said, but there was a slight waver to his voice, and he blinked another batch of tears down his cheeks, which he yet again had to reach up and angrily brush away. "Fuck, it's this— It's all your fault!" he said and poked a finger at one of Steve's pecs. "You and your super sperm getting me knocked up. It's probably got special properties in it. I'm probably more emotional than most women in a similar situation."

"Honey, I'm pretty sure you're a unique case. And did you just…call yourself a…woman?"

Tony sighed out a breath. "I don't know," he muttered. "I don't know what to call myself anymore. I look like this, but I _know_ I'm not really…or maybe I am. I don't know. I mean, I still _think_ of myself as a man temporarily in a woman's body, I guess. I don't…" He shook his head and shrugged. "I don't know, Steve. I don't know what I feel like, but I'm starting to feel less and less like Tony Stark and more like…I don't know who."

"Maybe someone different?" Steve said. "Like another identity or something. Like a…female identity."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "What? Trying to say I should just give in and get in touch with my feminine side?"

"No, I'm not saying—"

"Then what, Steve? What are you saying?"

"I don't know!" he cried. "I don't know any more than you do. I just…I want you to be happy, Tony."

He snorted a bitter laugh. "Only one way for me to ever be happy again, babe."

"Honey, I know that, but that's not an option right now."

"So, what? You're saying I should make the best of a bad situation? This isn't a bad haircut, Steve. This is—"

"I know what it is, Tony."

"No, I don't think you do because, newsflash, babe, _it's not happening to you_. You're not the one that was turned into a woman, you're not the one that got knocked up, you're not the one that has to go through with it under pain of death. You're not the one sitting there having your entire identity screwed with because you happily identified as a male for the first forty-three years of your life and suddenly had that taken away from you, and you're now a woman — and a pregnant woman at that. I'm scared, Steve. I'm fucking terrified because I'm starting to not even know who I am, and the longer this goes on, the harder it's going to be to figure out."

He sat away from Steve, but he didn't fight it when Steve sighed and reached out to pull Tony into his arms. He went with it, a slight pout on his face, and Steve exhaled another breath and rubbed his hands over Tony's back and said, "What did I tell you when this all started? How were we going to face this?"

"Together," he muttered.

"Right," Steve said. "You're not going through this alone. Physically, yes. I can't share the burden with you. None of us can. But we're here for you. We're not going to let you fall. We're not going to let you fail. We're going to find our way through this no matter what it takes."

He allowed himself to relax into Steve's embrace, and he put his arms around him and closed his eyes.

"You're a fucking sap, you know that?"

He felt Steve brush his lips over the crown of his head. "I know, but I mean it. Anything for you. Always."

Steve was quiet a moment, and Tony was enjoying the peace when Steve said, "Uh, so, what was that thing you wanted to talk to me about?"

"Hmm?"

"Your text. You said you wanted me to do something for you when you got home?"

Tony frowned and tilted his head in consideration a moment before he remembered the way Natasha had…been kind of groping him, and he sat up and met Steve's gaze before he straddled Steve's lap, putting his hands on his shoulders, and said, "I just…" He twitched his mouth from side-to-side and said, "I just… Just touch me."

Steve frowned at him and raised his hands a little like he was making a move to do as much. "Uh, OK." He stopped cold and added. "Where?"

"Between my legs?"

Steve raised an eyebrow. "Is that a question or—"

"No, no, it's a request."

Steve swallowed and nodded, and he broke their gaze to glance down to Tony's crotch, and he picked his hand up and reached down to brush the knuckle of his index finger against the sensitive, but cloth-covered slit of his labia.

"There?" he asked tentatively, but Tony just hummed a little and sat a little straighter, arching into the feel.

"Hmm…yeah," he murmured.

"Starting to feel a little better?" Steve mused quietly and went a little faster and a little firmer with his strokes.

Tony flexed his fingers over Steve's shoulders, his eyes closed as he savored the touch. He was wrong. He didn't want Natasha touching him. He didn't want her involved with this. Nope, this was just something for him and Steve to experiment with.

"Mmm…yeah, a little."

Steve chuckled and continued his strokes. "Feels good?"

"Would probably feel better without this stupid denim between my pussy and your finger."

"We could always do something about that," Steve said, only to be interrupted by that cockblocker named JARVIS, who said, " _Sir, Captain, I should wish to warn you that Sam Wilson is on his way up to report on his search for the wayward Sergeant Barnes_."

Tony groaned and slid off Steve's lap, muttering, "He couldn't just fucking _call?_ " and even Steve seemed just a little disappointed as he told JARVIS, "Thank you, JARVIS."

He got up and winced a little as he put weight on his sore feet, and Steve looked up and said, just a hint of panic in his voice, "You're not sticking around?"

"Just going upstairs to slip into something less sweat-on by douche-bros. Pep and Hill probably wouldn't want me burning their clothes, right?"

Steve laughed a little. "I don't think so, honey."

"Whatever. I guess the stench of cheap body spray will come out in the wash," he muttered and padded up the steps, groaning and holding onto the railing for dear life. "How the fuck do women deal with those fucking heels?"

"Don't you wear heels? What about those dress shoes you wear?" Steve called after him.

"Fuck you! They're called 'shoe lifts,' and a lot of guys wear them!" Tony yelled back to him. "Not all of us are six-foot super soldiers."

"Good," Steve said just as Tony had reached the top of the steps, "I don't find them very attractive. I like my men short and wiry."

"That's you getting me back for the 'ornery' comment, isn't it?"

"I don't know. Is it?" Steve asked, but the elevator door opened, and the next words out of Steve's mouth were to Sam.

Tony sighed and went into the bedroom, and he shucked off his club attire and was tempted to just crawl into his pajamas and into bed, but he could still _feel_ the stench and sleaze of the club on him, so he stripped out of the rest of his clothes and jumped in the shower.

Steve still hadn't come upstairs by the time he finished, and he sat on the bed and towel-dried his hair. He tried to listen in for Steve and Sam's conversation, but he couldn't hear anything — not even the general noise that Steve could somehow make just lounging around and reading stuff on his tablet — and so he got up and went over to the door and thought maybe being closer to the living room would help him.

He still couldn't hear anything, so he stepped into the hallway and called out, "Steve?" No answer. "Steve?" Still no answer.

He frowned and went over to the top of the steps. "Babe? You still down there?"

He was answered with silence, and he frowned and said, "J, is Steve still in the penthouse?"

" _Captain Rogers and Mr. Wilson departed the Tower approximately fifteen minutes ago_."

"The Tower? They left the building?"

" _That is correct, Sir_."

"Did they say where they were going?"

" _They did not. They had been discussing the general lack of luck in the tracking of the wayward Sergeant Barnes in the moments prior to departing, however, and it did not appear that they were departing for all that long._ "

"Oh," he said but wasn't sure how to feel about JARVIS's explanation. It would almost seem like they were trying to hide something from him — or at least from JARVIS — but Tony had seen no reason for them to do so. After all, it's not like they'd pulled anything like this in the past. Maybe they were just stepping out for a drink or something?

Still, something about it didn't sit right with him, something that, if he was being honest with himself, hadn't sat right with him from the start.

Look, he trusted Steve, and he knew Steve's relationship with Barnes was more like that of brothers — like the way his relationship with Rhodey was. He knew Steve's search for Barnes was more about doing right by his friend and not because he was mourning the loss of the one that got away.

Now, Peggy Carter, on the other hand...

But he'd actually, not long before they'd started dating, asked Steve about his relationship with him and how he really felt for the guy, and he'd seen no reason for Steve to lie about it. They hadn't been dating then. There'd been nothing for him to lose. Steve had said Barnes was his best pal and the guy that had pulled him out of the fire more times than he could count. He'd said he'd owed that same courtesy to Barnes in return, but the one time Barnes had needed him to save him, he hadn't been able to. He'd failed his friend in a way that his friend had never failed him. And he knew that that was what drove Steve now to search out his friend. He needed to put right what had gone wrong. He couldn't hold that against the guy. He was certain if he was in Steve's position, he would have felt the same.

Still, that didn't stop the nagging little voice in the back of his head — the one that taunted him and pointed out his deficiencies, the one that had suddenly found something new and something devastating to bother him with. One little thought that he could oh-so-easily convince himself of because, honestly, he was pretty sure no matter how you shook it, it was completely 100% true.

No matter how Steve felt about him, Tony would always come second to Barnes.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, there is sex in this chapter. Very badly-written sex. The stuff before it is safe (as in not badly-written sex).

* * *

For the first time in, well, months, Tony was feeling good. No, not good, _great_.

He woke up the next morning feeling like a million bucks (well, maybe billion, in his case), refreshed, rested, and alert. For the first time in what felt like forever, he didn't have that annoying wave of nausea that hit him as soon as he sat up, and he stretched out wide and yawned and slunk into the bathroom to take care of that morning's business.

After, still in pajamas, he padded into the kitchen where Steve was already smearing cream cheese on a bagel, and he reached out and grabbed half of it and kissed his jaw before he took a large and savory bite.

"Oh, _god!_ " he practically moaned around the mouthful of bread and cheese, "I can fucking _eat_ again!"

Steve smiled at him. "Feeling better?"

" _So_ much," he replied and sat down at the island and grabbed the tablet Steve had left there. He considered the bitten half of bagel he held in his hand and added, "Jesus, this tastes like fucking perfection."

"I'm happy to hear that," Steve said and set the other half of the bagel down on a plate in front of him before we went about fixing another one for himself.

"Mmm… If you wanted to pour me a gigantic cup of that black liquid god you've got brewed in the pot over there, I will do anything you want."

Steve laughed but said, "I don't think you're supposed to have coffee."

"One cup isn't going to be the death of me, Steve!"

Bagel in hand, he turned the tablet display on and began to swipe over the screens, pulling up the news and stock feeds and going over the headlines for the day. With a resigned sigh, Steve turned and grabbed a mug from the cabinet, and he filled it with a serving of Tony's liquid savior and set the coffee down beside the plate with the bagel on it. Then, leaning slightly over Tony, he reached out and, hesitating for only a moment, put his hand over the small swell of Tony's belly, somehow equal parts possessive and protective. He leaned in and captured Tony's mouth with his own, pressing a gentle, tender, and loving kiss to his lips as he rubbed the bump. He broke the kiss just as it began to get a little too heated, and he pressed his cheek to Tony's and whispered in his ear, "Nothing will be so long as I'm here."

Tony shivered at that, and he put a hand atop Steve's and held it there and rubbed his cheek against the slight scratch of Steve's scruff. Slight heat began to pool in his belly, and his nerves electrified at Steve's touch against him. He moved his hand up Steve's arm, feeling the hairs there brush against his palm, and it occurred to him that, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours—

He was sorta, kinda horny.

He pulled away from Steve at that thought and met Steve's slightly-hooded blue eyes, and he smiled and tilted his head a little and said, "Let's go out."

"Huh?" Steve asked, his brow crinkling adorably in confusion.

"I'm sick of being stuck in this tower. I'm not fucking Rapunzel. I want to go out. I want to go on a date."

Steve laughed a little, though it was more nervous than humorous. "Tony, we can't. You know that."

"Why not?"

Steve pulled away and went back to fixing himself another bagel. "Because!" He motioned over Tony like that explained everything.

"What? Am I hideous? Are you ashamed to be seen with me?"

"No! Of course not, Tony! It's just…you _can't_."

"Why not? I'm not some slave you can order around."

Steve rolled his eyes and slathered a god awful amount of cream cheese on his second bagel. "Tony, no, you're not a slave, but you're a—"

"A _what_ , Steve?"

"A woman," he said with an exhale of breath.

"So?"

Steve met his gaze and raised his eyebrows. " _Tony_."

"What? I fail to see how—"

"People know we're dating, Tony. It's public knowledge that Captain America and Iron Man are together."

"Yeah, that twenty-four-hour cycle of fundamentalist assholes preaching for you to repent your ungodly ways while I burned in hell is kind of burned into my memory."

Steve sighed some as he sat in the chair adjacent to Tony. "That's not what I— I mean, people _know_ we're together, Tony. It's fine for you to go out with Maria and Natasha and Pepper. There's nothing there to raise eyebrows about. But not us, and besides, there're already questions being asked about Tony Stark's mysterious disappearance from the limelight. Iron Man still puts in appearances, but Tony Stark hasn't been seen in, what, two months? If I'm seen in public — on a date — with someone that they think is _not_ Tony Stark, it's just going to open us up to all sorts of rumor and accusation."

Tony weighed this a moment, tilting his head back and forth in thought. "Might be kind of fun for a while."

"No, it wouldn't be."

" _Steve!_ Outside of being in the Iron Man suit and a horrendous evening at a club that I'm half-tempted to buy and bulldoze, I haven't been outside of this joint in _months!_ I want to feel the sun on my face and the fresh air in my lungs! I want— I want—"

"You want me to take you out on a date?"

"Yeah!"

"In public?"

"Yeah!"

"Where other people are?"

"Yea— well, I guess if there have to be." He set the tablet and the bagel down and reached for Steve's arm. "Come on, Steve! It'll be fun! Plus, you know the gossip-mongers are just looking for some good Avengers dirt to get their hands on."

"I'd rather they not use you to—"

"Look, it's no big deal! We'll go out, we'll have dinner, we'll laugh and we'll chat, and if anyone says boo about it, we'll turn on them for daring to parrot the bullshit that men and women can't just be friends with each other. They always have to be having sex."

He shook his head. "No. I won't let them tear you down—"

"Look, if it gets to be too bad, we'll just tell them the truth."

"The truth?"

"Yeah. That I'm the long-lost Stark sister that mysteriously disappeared in 1978 or whenever we make it." He waved his hand in the air. "Details aren't important yet."

Steve let out a big sigh. "Tony, I don't—"

"Steven, _indulge me_."

"Honey, you know I want to—"

"Then do it! Damn the press and whatever they say about us. We know the truth. Who cares what they think?"

Steve met his gaze, and Tony held it, boring into him almost like he was trying to force his will on Steve, until Steve finally relented and said, "Yeah, OK."

"Wait, _really_?" he said, floored that it had worked. That shouldn't have worked. Why had that worked? Was Steve feeling OK?

"Yeah," Steve said with a nod and a small smile. "You deserve it. You've been cooped up here the past couple months, and though I know you could be happy the rest of your life if we just left you down in your lab to tinker and toy, I know even you need to get out in the world every so often."

"Wait, so, date? Really?"

"Really-really."

Tony tried not to sound too eager, but he probably sounded a bit zealous when he said, " _Now?_ "

Steve glanced at the clock on the microwave. "Not unless things have changed since I went in the ice and eight o'clock in the morning is a good time to go out on a date."

Tony made a face of disgust. "It's _eight o'clock?_ In the _morning?_ "

"Yeah," Steve said and didn't even attempt to hide his laugh. "Turns out there is such a thing."

"Ugh," Tony said and grabbed his coffee. "There should be laws against being up this early."

He put the mug to his lips and downed a soothing gulp of the drink, and Steve leaned over and kissed his forehead then sat back and began to pick at his bagel. "So, what are you thinking?"

"If it's worth it to crawl back into bed or if I should just say the hell with it and stay up."

"I meant about the date."

"Oh." Tony sat a little straighter and brightened. "I think we should go whole-hog. Someplace nice where we can get dressed up."

Steve bit his lip, and it looked like he was trying to figure out how to choose his words very carefully as he said, "What exactly do you plan on wearing?"

"Um, clothes?"

"No, I mean—" He nodded his head at Tony. "Your suits aren't going to fit you. I mean, they're specially-tailored to your other…body."

Tony looked down at himself and considered this. "Yeah, you're probably right. Don't think they'd look good on this figure, either. No, I take that back. I could totally make them work, and I would look fucking fantastic. But no, I figure, look, I'm stuck like this for the next, what, five months? Maybe I should, I don't know, _embrace it_."

"What do you mean?"

"I've been running around this place wearing tanks and yoga pants. Not all that different from what I normally wear. Maybe it's why I haven't gone crazy yet. But no, I was thinking, I could wear a dress."

"A dress?"

"Yeah. Maybe even get my hair done. Makeup. More than the half-assed job I did last night. I'm really starting to feel like I've been given the opportunity of a lifetime here, and I've been squandering it. I admire the way women look when they get dressed up. Now I can see what actually goes into it."

"To be fair, there was nothing stopping you from doing that before."

"No, I guess not, but it's still different. Might as well have some fun with it."

"Does that mean you're going to tweeze your eyebrows?"

Tony glared at him.

"Maybe do something about that moustache."

Tony glared harder, if that was possible.

"What?" Steve asked with a nervous laugh. "I'm just saying when you first, er, became like that, they were really nice, and now they're kind of, uh…"

"I'm sorry, Steve. I didn't know my eyebrows offended you so much. Oh, and my moustache, too. Funny, you seem to be OK with facial hair when I have a cock. But now that I don't, suddenly, you're completely offended by my imperfections."

"I'm not! I'm just saying that if you really want the whole experience—"

Tony propped his leg up on Steve's thigh and pulled his pant leg up. "I take it I should shave, too?" he said, revealing a leg that had clearly not seen a razor in months.

"Tony, you don't have to do anything you don't want to—"

He jumped up from his chair. "Nope, I've made my decision! I'm going to become so feminine you won't know what hit you!"

He grabbed his bagel off the island and reached over and pecked Steve on the lips. "Whatever happens, I want you to remember you brought this on yourself. I'm making reservations for eight tonight. Keep a watch on your phone for the details. And get Wilson to help you get dressed. I want you looking like a million bucks. Or a billion. Preferably a billion."

"Where are you going?" Steve asked in confusion.

"To work some magic on myself."

~*~

Natasha just raised an eyebrow when Tony showed up at her door, bagel stuck in his mouth. He pulled the bagel away and said, "I need some help."

"Clearly," she replied.

He rolled his eyes and pushed his way into her pad. "No, I mean—" Bagel still in hand, he motioned over himself. "With this."

Natasha just closed her door and folded her arms. "In what way?" she asked as she made her way over to him.

"I'm going on a date—"

She raised her eyebrow again.

" _With Steve_ ," he amended with a roll of the eyes. "Look, I'm actually feeling good for the first time in months, I'm going stir-crazy in this place, and I want to go out for a night on the town with my sexy super soldier fiancé. Now, I totally know how to make myself look good in my other body, but this one, yeah, I haven't quite figured out yet, and you and the other two seemed to do OK with me last night. So, you know, any pointers you have would be great."

He bit into the bagel and chewed, cream cheese gathering at the corners of his mouth, and Natasha went into the kitchen for a moment before she reappeared with a napkin and held it out to him.

"You want me to help you play dress-up?" she asked as he took the napkin but didn't do anything with it.

"Yeah," he said and took another bite.

She was quiet a moment, like she was thinking things over, before she said, "Did you run this by Steve yet? I'm not sure Captain America wants to be seen on a date with someone that isn't Iron Man."

"Yeah. He's totally for it."

"Are you sure?"

Tony rolled his eyes again. "No," he said and took another bite, and through a mouthful of food, he added, "when I got turned into a woman, I completely forgot how to correctly interpret the meaning of the words, 'Yeah, OK, Tony. We'll go out on a date tonight.'"

"He said those exact words?"

Tony chewed and swallowed. "Not exactly, but close enough. Look, if you don't believe me, ask him. He'll tell you he's totally fine with it."

"He's not afraid of adding to the rumors about the whereabouts of Tony Stark?"

He shrugged. "Making me happy is more important, I guess," he said and popped the last bite of bagel into his mouth. He chewed and smiled at her, and she shook her head but smiled a little as she did so.

"Clint's right. You _are_ spoiled. What did you have in mind?"

Tony finally wiped his hands and mouth off with the napkin. "I need you to make me look like a goddess. You know like in those bad teen movies where the formerly homely girl takes off her glasses and puts her hair down and suddenly she's the most beautiful person in school and the sappy song plays and everyone stops what they're doing to watch her enter the scene and there's soft lighting and effects and shit like that?"

Natasha just stared at him. "You have more familiarity with those movies than I do, apparently."

He rolled his eyes again. "Whatever, look, I just need to look like— Make me pretty, all right?"

Natasha considered this, tilting her head as she looked him over, and she reached out and touched the dark tendrils of hair that fell over his shoulders and said, "You already are pretty. You need a little touching up here and there, but to be honest, Stark, you really do make for a good-looking woman."

"Yeah, I'm slowly coming to terms with that, and I'm trying to figure out if that means something."

She shrugged but took his chin and turned his head from side-to-side, a look of intense scrutiny etched over her face. "I don't know if that means anything, really. You just…look like what you would look like if you'd been born this way."

"Thank you?"

She smiled, soft and almost like she cared. "Don't mention it. Your eyes are your best feature. Always have been."

"Always?" He folded his arms tight over his body, by now having figured out the trick to accounting for his pronounced breasts. "Tell me, Ms. Rushman, does this imply there was a point in our acquaintance that you had, as the kids say, checked me out?"

"I can appreciate attractive features without wanting to get into your pants."

"You know, it didn't seem that way at the time. And for the record, I'm not sure if I'm talking about back then or last night."

She shrugged but didn't seem particularly proud of herself. "I did what I had to in order to get what I needed. And for the record, I'm talking about both."

He hummed but didn't say anything beyond that, and she tweaked a small smile at him and said, "Nothing I own will fit you. We'll have to go out and find something that works."

He made a face. "We have to go shopping?"

"How else were you planning on getting clothes?"

"Kind of thought JARVIS could just, I don't know, order them based on my measurements."

She muttered something in Russian and rolled her eyes then said in English, "Half the fun is seeing what works on you and what doesn't. You want to 'wow' Steve, right?"

"Yeah."

She frowned and considered something. "Is he even… Does he even find women attractive that way?"

"Claims to."

But Natasha just smiled at him, her eyes going soft and maybe even a little fond. "Of course, it's different with you, isn't it?"

"Not following."

"Steve will do anything for anyone. He just has that good a heart. But you?" She shook her head a little, almost as though in awe. "I don't think there's anything he wouldn't do for you."

He frowned at her tone. "That…doesn't sound like you're implying it to be a good thing."

"Steve can't think straight when it comes to you — no pun intended," she added as he opened his mouth to make a crack about her wording. "It actually worries me what he'll do if anything happens to you that can be directly linked to that witch's spell."

The wave of nausea came back, and he grimaced and said, "You know Steve doesn't like to talk about—"

"Steve's not here. Steve refuses to accept anything but victory, which is what scares me. If anything ever happened to you?" She smiled a little, but it was sharp and maybe a little disquieting. "I'm not sure the universe would survive it, never mind the world."

Tony nodded. "OK, point taken. Don't die."

But none of her unease had let up. "I'm serious, Tony. Steve…leans on you." Tony scoffed, but she continued, "You're what grounds him. He's got the rest of us, and he's got the hunt for his old pal, but those are distractions. You… You made the future safe for him. You made it OK for him. Things aren't as scary for him as they could be because he's got you leading the way for him. He knows you're not going to let him fall any more than he's going to let you fall."

She closed her mouth and pursed her lips a little as she considered her next thought.

"Maybe there is something to this soul mate or bondmate business," she mused after a moment. "I never thought there was a perfect recipe for a relationship. Some work out; some don't. But I think you two have it down to a science more than most. You almost…balance each other. You bring out the best in each other. Of course, you can also bring out the worst in each other. But you two…need each other. You're at your best together. You…"

She frowned now, like she wasn't sure if she should say what she was thinking. "What?" he finally asked because he didn't think she'd say anything unprodded.

"Pepper was good for you," she said, "but I think I knew then you two were better off as friends."

"So the 'save it for the honeymoon' was a lie, too?"

"No," she said with a considered and curt shake of the head. "But it seemed like you were happy— or you thought you were happy. But now that you're with Steve, it doesn't _seem_ like you're happy. You _are_ happy."

He swallowed. "OK, oh-enlightened-one, and what about Steve?"

"What about him?"

"Is he happy?"

She chewed her lip some and narrowed her eyes. "I know what Steve looks like when he's faking happiness," she said. "Those few months after he came out of the ice — when he was trying to convince everyone he was fine and he didn't need to talk to anyone—"

"Shrinks didn't have the best reputation back in his day."

She let out a tiny laugh. "I don't think Steve would be the type to talk out his feelings to a psychiatrist no matter what era he was born in. Steve plays it close to the vest, but he has his tells. It's in his eyes. When he's dealing with something he doesn't want to deal with or when he's put in a situation he doesn't want to be in or when he starts getting a little lost, his eyes go a little flat. I might even say 'dead.' He can't hide it in his eyes."

"OK, so what's your point?"

"My point is that he doesn't get that look around you. He never did. Even back when you two were measuring your dicks on the helicarrier, it was the most alert he'd been since the whole thing with Loki started."

Tony frowned. "Yeah, back when he hated me—"

"He never hated you, Tony. That's my point. There was something about you from the start. Something about you that got under his skin. Something he couldn't shake." She smiled a little, coy and bemused. "I don't think he realized what it really was at the time, but looking back, he could probably admit it to himself now."

"Yeah? And what's that?"

Her smile broadened, and Tony could tell she was enjoying this a little more than she should have been. "He was attracted to you."

"What?" He snorted out a laugh. "Get real."

"I'm very real. I don't think it had ever happened to him before. I don't think he'd ever felt an instant attraction before — not like that. He didn't know how to deal with it, and coming from the era he'd come from, he was probably used to having to suppress those feelings."

"Eh," Tony said and made a face. "He did go to art school."

She couldn't hide her amusement. "You think he would have been perfectly OK admitting to himself that he was sexually attracted to Howard Stark's son right out of the gate? Or ice, in his case."

"Have you seen me?" he asked and motioned over himself. "Clearly, no matter what, I am very easy on the eyes."

She leveled him with one of her unimpressed looks, which weren't nearly as amusing or guilt-inducing as Steve's were wont to be.

"That's sort of my point. He _did_ see you, and he liked what he saw more than he wanted to admit to himself."

"And you know this because?" She shrugged.

"I have my ways."

"He told you?"

She shook her head. "He didn't have to tell me. Not in so many words. It's more in what he _said_ or, in some cases, didn't say. Sometimes, it was just in the way he looked."

"Looked?"

"At you. Which brings me back to my point. The way Steve looks at you versus the way Steve looks at everything else."

Tony thought about this a moment then shook his head. "Yeah, not seeing it. Steve doesn't look at me any differently than he looks at anyone else."

She tilted her head. "No?"

He shook his head.

"Well, you're wrong, but I don't expect you to see it. You probably thinks he looks at everyone the same way he looks at you."

He huffed a little and decided to humor her. "And how does he look at me?"

"Like you're his entire world. Like you hung the sun, the moon, and the stars. It's sweet, but at the same time, it's terrifying."

He still didn't believe her. He'd watched Steve _many_ times in the past, and Steve didn't look at him any differently than he looked at anything else.

"You're his anchor to the present," she added before he could say anything. She shrugged and continued, "If anything happens to you…"

Tony made a face of disbelief. "You really think Steve would lose it because of me?"

"No, I don't _think_ ," she said with a slight shake of her head. "I _know_. You're what keeps him sane. You're what gives him a reason to get up in the morning. Like I said, he has the team and he has the mantle of Captain America, but that's not a reason to _live_. That's a reason to _exist_. You're someone to love and protect and yell at and talk to and get into trouble with. Steve looked lost — really lost and alone — when he first came out of the ice. There were times I thought he might try to take out another iceberg. I haven't seen him look that way since you and he got your heads out of your asses." She shrugged. "But again, it's a blessing and a curse."

"I think you're overselling it—"

"You _really_ don't think Steve thinks the world of you?"

"I didn't say that—"

She put her hands on his arms. "You're not going to die. We won't let anything happen to you any more than Steve will. But just saying you do? Saying something happens that no one can stop? I fear for that witch and anyone that stands between her throat and Steve's hands."

He just nodded, and she squeezed his arms and made to turn until he said, "Do we all have tells or just Steve?"

She gave it some thought but didn't pull her hands from his arms. "You all do, I'd say."

"Yeah? What's mine?"

She didn't even have to think about it. "Your smile."

He winced a little in surprise. "What?"

"Your smile is your tell. The one you fake for the public is different than the one you give when you're actually happy about something. Though to tell the truth, Steve was the one that caught that, not me. It was the only time I thought he was cut out for spy work. Then I realized it was _you_ he'd figured out, and, well, it wasn't surprising."

She patted his arms then made for the direction of her bedroom. "Let me get my bag and then you can buy me breakfast."

~*~

OK, so, here's the thing: hanging out with Natasha was actually a lot of fun.

Not that he was that much of a fan of the shopping (torture; six stores, twenty-five dresses, and only two that looked in any way remotely decent: a proverbial little black dress and a deep burgundy halter-top number that hugged every curve and played up his cleavage; Natasha insisted on that one), but it was the other stuff that was fun. It was the going for lunch and the just general getting to hang out with Natasha not as superheroes but as friends with an unlimited spending account and a gorgeous city to take advantage of. They strolled the streets, unencumbered by the usual bullshit that would follow Tony Stark because of his fame and rather familiar face. They talked about their likes, they talked about their pasts (well, a _little_ bit — Natasha was still a gorgeous, red-headed enigma even after that), and they talked about the general goings-on of the world, and as they stood at the street corner and waited for the traffic to clear, the sun catching on Natasha's red hair and making it glisten like polished copper, Tony realized how truly lucky he was to have her — to have all the Avengers — in his life. Natasha was not spending this day out with him to humor him or because he'd promised her something in return. She was there because she wanted to be there. She was there because she was having fun, too.

He blinked, tears that had collected in his eyes wetting his lashes, and congratulated himself for having the foresight to wear a pair of dark, over-sized sunglasses. Christ, he was an emotional mess sometimes.

"Come on," Natasha said and put a gentle hand to his arm to lead him. "We can cross now."

Ridiculously lucky.

Natasha insisted that Tony really try to 'wow' Steve, and at the last store they ventured into, she picked out some rather eye-popping lingerie especially for the evening. Tony had to laugh as she showed it to him and said, "Why are you encouraging this?"

She shrugged and said, "Because I think you need it— I think you _both_ need it. And I think you'll both enjoy it."

Tony wasn't entirely sure, but he went along with it, anyway, and later that afternoon, after he'd made the arrangements for dinner at eight that evening and texted Steve with the details, telling him the reservations were made under the name 'Natasha Carbonell,' he let Natasha dress him up and paint his face like he was a doll for her to play with, and she wouldn't let him look in the mirror until she was done.

"But what if I don't like it?" Tony asked as Natasha brushed some shadow over his eyelid.

"You'll like it."

"But what if I don't?"

"You will. I promise."

"What if you're wrong?"

"I'm never wrong."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, OK, Steve."

She just pursed her lips in a small smile and went back to applying the makeup, and his phone buzzed with a response from Steve that read simply, _«Natasha?!?!»_ Tony grinned and picked up his phone to text back, and the real Natasha sighed a little and said, "You want this done right?"

"Give me a sec! Steve's texting me."

"Yes, god forbid we don't answer Steve immediately."

He didn't dignify that with a response; he just typed back, _«I think I look like a Natasha.»_

Honestly, he wasn't sure where the 'Natasha' name had come from. He didn't think it was from their Natasha, but maybe it was. Something had just compelled him to use that name, and he'd almost given the name 'Stark' as well until he'd caught himself right at the last moment and used his mother's maiden name instead. He knew Steve knew his mother's name, so he wouldn't find the last name questionable, but yeah, OK, maybe using 'Natasha' for the first name was a bit… leading.

_«Did Nat put you up to it?»_

_«Nat doesn't know.»_

" _Nat_ is going to make you do your own damned makeup if you don't stop texting."

" _Nat_ should not be reading over my shoulder."

She just smiled a little at him, the brush twitching some in her hand, before she went back to applying the makeup to his face. Somehow, Tony had a feeling she'd seen the text about the name, and somehow, he had a feeling she had chosen to read tribute into it.

Natasha helped him dress and made sure the French twist the hairdresser had done for him was still firmly in place, those expert tendrils framing his face, and when she was done, she turned him toward the full-length mirror in her suite and said, "Well?"

Tony didn't recognize himself.

The casual and sporty look that he'd grown accustomed to the past two months had been thrown by the wayside. He looked…gorgeous. He choked out a laugh. He looked downright gorgeous, with a dress that hugged his figure, dark hair pulled back to show off his face, and a face that looked like it had come off the pages of a magazine — a fashion magazine, not something like _Interwar Okies Today_. Which…was kind of insulting to people that had fled the Dust Bowl, and yeah, maybe not his most kindest or most timely insult, but whatever, hormones raging, wrong body, cut him some slack.

"Well?" Natasha asked, and Tony turned to her, a little in awe, and said, "I think it'll work."

Natasha winked at him. "I think you'll knock Steve's socks off."

"Rather knock his pants off."

She just grinned and said, "I'm sure you will."

Natasha drove him over to the restaurant in the R8 because a) she insisted that Tony couldn't drive over himself and b) Tony suspected she really just wanted to take the R8 out for a spin. He let her, told her not to rack up too many miles on the car, and then walked into the restaurant, biting his lips to keep from grinning at the pretty obvious looks he was getting. He was used to being admired in his other body, but this was the first time he'd had strangers doing it to _this_ body, and it was…maybe not _nice_ but _amusing_. Steve ogling him was one thing. It was a given. A stranger was another thing entirely.

The other member of his party hadn't arrived yet, per the maître d', and his small clutch borrowed from Natasha in-hand, he followed the waiter over to the table and sat, a little put out by the fact that it was beside the kitchen doors. Well, he had made it last minute, and he hadn't dropped the name 'Tony Stark,' so he couldn't be all that surprised that they'd ended up with a shit table.

He took a sip of water, pursing his lips in annoyance as some of his lipstick came off on the glass — so many stupid things to contend with — and pulled out his phone and began to swipe through the headlines. He was startled a couple times by the kitchen door slamming open and hitting against the chair across from him — the one Steve would be sitting in — and he looked around the restaurant for something else that was open that didn't have a little 'Reserved' card situated atop it. There was an absolutely lovely table over by the front window, and Tony was about to call out to a passing waiter to see if he could upgrade for a decent price, but he watched as the maître d' led another couple over and sat them down, one half of the pair with a miserable scowl on their face while the other had their nose pressed into their phone. Tony sat back in his chair and grumbled a bit. Good things always happened to bad or less-deserving people, it seemed, and he picked up his water glass again to take a sip, the silverware and china on the table rattling as the kitchen door swung open again and slammed against Steve's chair.

"God, I hope this isn't a sign of some kind," he muttered and took a sip.

It was nearly ten minutes gone before he noticed someone familiar making his way over to the table, and he sat up as Steve approached, smiling appreciatively as he saw Steve had chosen to wear (or had been told to wear by Sam) a charcoal-gray suit with a maroon dress shirt and burgundy tie, both of which matched his dress to the point that it looked like they had color- coordinated. After waiting for the kitchen door to swing closed again, Steve took the chair across from Tony and said he was fine with ice water for now when the host offered wine.

They were left alone, and Steve just looked at him, bemused, head tilted, like he wasn't quite sure what he was seeing.

"Clean up nice, yeah?" Tony said and motioned over himself.

Steve just blinked and stuttered out a few non-answers before he said, "I don't know what to say."

Tony hummed and said, "Customarily, you would tell me how fetching I look, and I would smile and blush a little and tell your how handsome you look. You'd ask if I've been here before, then I'd say yes, I love this place and I recommend you try the veal — but not really because eating veal is just cruel. Do you know what they do to those poor calves? Chain them and break their legs. It's horrible. How can people conscionably eat veal in this day and age? And yeah, that makes me a hypocrite because holy shit could I go for a thick porterhouse right now, but—"

"You look fantastic," Steve said, cutting off what could have become Tony's directionless defense of his eating habits.

Tony nodded his head in approval. "Thank you. You look so good I can't wait to see that suit on my bedroom floor."

The kitchen door opened and slammed into the back of Steve's chair, and after jolting at the hit, Steve squeezed his eyes shut and plastered a tight smile over his face then took a deep breath and opened his eyes again, taking in the sight of Tony sitting across from him.

"No, I mean it," he said, his annoyance with the kitchen door seemingly having passed. "You look wonderful. Seriously. I know this hasn't been... I know it's been..."

Tony waved him off. "I get it. Yeah, it's… It's an adventure. I make for a hell of a knockout dame."

Steve gave him a funny look, partly-bemused, partly like he wondered what in the world Tony had just said, and Tony put his hands up in defense and said, "Hey, I'm just trying to speak your language, old man."

Steve shook his head a little and began to glance at the menu. "Well, thank you for the effort."

"Don't mention it, babe. I got you covered." He picked up his own menu and opened it. "God, I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

Steve smirked as he looked over the menu. "If they serve us horse at these prices, I'm going to file a complaint with the city."

Tony hummed again and said, "I love it when you get all righteous and civil-actiony."

"You're definitely feeling better now, aren't you?"

"Like you wouldn't believe! I have an appetite again, I have a sex-drive again— Incidentally, I wasn't joking about getting that suit on my bedroom floor."

"Thought it was our bedroom?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't sound as kinky when you say it that way. My way is sexier."

Steve coughed and continued to look at the menus.

"And speaking of sexy..." Tony glanced down at himself. "You like?"

Steve wouldn't look. "Yeah, it's good. It's fine."

There was a slight hitch to his voice, and Tony took that opportunity to lean against the table some, holding his arms so that his breasts pressed closer together and gave even more of an impression of cleavage.

"Is it?" he asked with faux-innocence, and Steve dared to glance up from his menu for a moment before he swallowed and averted his gaze.

"Steven."

"Yeah?"

Tony grinned. "You're not looking, Steven."

Steve flipped to the next section of menu but said nothing.

"I wore this just for you, you know."

"Tony, stop it," he said with a grumble but still wouldn't look.

"Stop what?"

"You're going to get me in trouble."

"How?"

Steve shot him a look over the menu, purposefully avoiding looking anywhere below his eyes. "You know how."

"Ah, yes," he said and sat back. " _Captain America stepping out on Iron Man. Trouble in paradise?_ " he said like he was reading a headline off a teleprompter for a gossip show.

"Exactly! Not to mention that no one's seen Tony Stark in weeks."

"Sure they have!"

"They don't know that they have."

"Well, look, I don't think they'll be accusing you of dismembering me and stuffing me in a freezer just so you can go out on the town with a gorgeous mystery brunette."

Steve just raised an eyebrow at him.

"OK, well, I don't think they'll accuse you of murdering me. They'll just say I fell off the wagon and had to go to one of those treatment facilities, and as they say, while the cat is away, the mouse will play. 'Course, even though you're the cheating son-of-a-bitch, everyone will take your side of it because Tony Stark is an asshole that deserves to have his morally upright boyfriend cheat on him with a gorgeous dark-eyed mystery brunette."

Steve had looked up from his menu as soon as Tony had uttered the word 'asshole.' "Tony, stop," he said looking equal parts saddened and incensed. "That's not true."

"Isn't it? Don't you think that's what they'll say?"

Steve just sighed and shook his head but said nothing to counter, though Tony knew him well enough to know he wasn't agreeing with Tony so much as trying to get him to drop an argument that he had no chance of winning.

"You're harder on yourself than anyone," he finally said, and Tony snorted a laugh.

"Clearly, you never saw the way Howard used to treat me."

Steve looked up again. He met Steve's fierce, blue gaze, and Steve just stared back at him, resolute, and said, "I mean it. I ever see that man again, I'm knocking him into next week."

Tony went to say something when he realized an older couple seated at the table beside them was giving them funny looks. Tony met their confusion head-on and said, "Yes?" like they were the crazy ones and not him and Steve.

" _Natasha_ ," Steve said, a warning tone in his voice.

"I find it's quite rude to eavesdrop on other people's private conversations, don't you?"

Steve raised an eyebrow. "Then maybe we shouldn't have a private conversation in a public restaurant."

"No, we totally should," Tony countered. "I should have just rented it out for the night so it was only the two of us."

Steve opened his mouth to say something when the kitchen door slammed into the back of his chair again, jolting him, making him hit his abdomen against the table, which rattled the dishware and cutlery atop it. He took another deep breath and let it out, shooting a glare in the direction of the waiter that had slammed the door into his chair.

"You know I don't like when you throw your money around like that," he said then threw a glance over his left shoulder at the offending implement that was just closing with a gentle swing. "Actually, in this case, it might have been a good idea," he added and turned back to Tony, "but I still don't like when you throw your money around like that. On principle."

God, what a weird way of admitting that Tony was right about something.

"Come on, Steve!" he said. "Then we wouldn't have gossiping-Gerties hanging on our every word."

"Do you know what this conversation probably sounds like to other people?"

"God, I can't even imagine. I'm half of the conversation, and even I'm confused by it."

"The waiter's coming back over. Did you pick out what you want yet?"

He snorted a laugh. "Of course I haven't. Haven't even looked at the menu. I've been talking to you the entire time."

Steve glanced up and smiled at him over his menu, slyly. "And how fortunate I am."

"You really are, you know," Tony said, all false-bravado.

"Yeah," Steve said, and warmth and gratitude flooded Tony's entire being at the amount of fondness that was in Steve's voice. "I am." The door slammed into the back of Steve's chair again. " _Goddamn son-of-a-bitch!_ "

Tony let out a faux gasp. " _Language_ , Captain!"

Steve glared at him, and Tony puckered his lips and blew a kiss in his direction. He felt the eyes of that elderly couple on him once more, and he turned to them and said, "Yes?" once again.

But while the wife was practically glaring daggers at him, the husband had his attention directed at Steve and was saying something like, "Isn't that...?"

" _Natasha_ ," Steve murmured knowingly, and Tony turned his attention back to him. " _Stop it_."

"OK," he said and flashed a grin at the waiter that had finally arrived to take their order. "But only because you asked nicely."

~*~

"Tony, the press is going to be all over me for this."

"It's only ten blocks to the Tower, Steve. Come on! It's too nice to call for a car."

"Yeah, but—"

"No _yeah, but_ s. Now, be a proper gentleman and hold my hand."

"There. Happy?"

"Ecstatically."

"You drive me nuts."

"You know you love it."

"Yeah… You didn't drive here?"

"Nah. I had Natasha drop me off."

"Nat doesn't own a car."

"I said she could use one of mine."

"You know that car's in a chop shop in Hoboken by now."

"I'm going to tell her you said that."

"She'd just get insulted that I think she can't do any better than Jersey. Seriously, Tony, I think we already caused enough of a scene at the restaurant."

" _We?_ I'm sorry was _I_ the one that left the note with the receipt shaming them for putting a table next to the kitchen doors?"

"I spilled water all down the front of my shirt."

"Yeah? You should know better than to drink in public."

"And it wasn't just that. It was you—"

"It was me _what?_ "

"Running your foot up my leg!"

"Mmm... I've never heard Captain America squeak before."

"And you still haven't. You startled the hell out of Steve Rogers, though."

"I don't know why. I just lightly ran my foot up your leg—"

"To my _crotch_ , Tony. That's why. And I'll tell you— I think you're having a little too much fun with this."

"With what?"

"You know what."

"You don't like it?"

"I didn't say that. I just said you're having a little _too_ much fun with this. Anyone that saw us would _clearly_ think that was a date—"

"It _was_ a date."

"It wasn't supposed to be so obvious. You know it's probably already on those horrible sites like TMZ and…"

"You can't think of another gossip site, can you?"

"I got that one didn't I?"

"Eh, you're a thousand. I'll let it slide— Oh, subway grate with these heels? I don't think so. We gotta go around that, Steve."

"Want me to carry you?"

"Yeah, but— _Steve!_ Damn, it _no!_ Put me—! Don't even—! Oh, you think it's funny, do you?"

"You said you wanted me to."

"You're the one that's afraid of what the press is going to say."

"Yeah, I know."

"Oh, now don't— Look, who cares what the press thinks?"

"I do."

"You shouldn't."

"Tony, I'm the leader of the Avengers. We're on slightly shaky ground the way it is."

"Only with the fundamentalist assholes that think you can't date a guy and set a good moral example at the same time. Fuck 'em, Steve. Fuck 'em, I say! Only don't because you're only allowed to do that with me."

"That's not what I meant. We've done a lot of good, and there's a lot of goodwill toward us from the public, but I'm starting to hear rumblings about us being a rogue group that answers to no one but ourselves."

"Are you kidding? We answer to Captain America. I'd rather answer to some sort of faceless government bureaucracy. Much easier to thumb my nose at them and tell them to go fuck themselves. I've never had a government agency give me the patented Stare of Disapproval."

"I heard Clint say that a couple weeks ago. What is that?"

"Oh, shit, you weren't supposed to know about that."

"Know about what?"

"OK, look, but you didn't hear it from me."

" _What?_ "

"Oh, my god, you're doing it! What—? No! Stop that— Look, sometimes when you get all righteous and sanctimonious, you get this look on your face that makes all of us feel like we somehow have failed at life in general. We call it the Stare of Disapproval or the Stare of Disappointment."

"We?"

"Well, me, Barton, Banner, Natasha — other Natasha, I mean. I'm not talking about myself in third-person."

"Your name isn't actually—"

"Thor doesn't really get in on it, but based on things I've heard him say, he's seen you do it. It's usually phrased more elegantly and old-timey than how we describe it."

"Good to know."

"If you rat me out to the others, I'll deny everything."

"Won't they know you're lying?"

"My word against yours, babe."

"And doesn't everyone take Captain America at his word?"

"…Fuck you. Just for that, I'm walking without you."

"Come on, Tony! Don't be like that— Hey! Get over here."

"What? Steve! I thought you said the press is going to be all over you for this?"

"They will be, but here, it's too cold out for you to walk down the street in just that slip of a dress. Take my jacket."

"Mmm… It smells like you."

"Really? I borrowed it off Thor."

"The hell you did. That guy's got bigger shoulders than you—"

"I don't think he does—"

"—and he doesn't smell like this."

"And how's that?"

"Like soap and man and pure grit and determination. And freedom."

"Freedom."

"Yeah. It's a very Steve-y smell."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It makes perfect sense. You're just not listening to me."

"And you're not paying attention to the crosswalks."

"What? Oh, right. Ah, fuck you, buddy! I wasn't anywhere near your cab! Jesus, you know, half of those lunatics should have their licenses taken away."

"I'm pretty sure the city would descend into pure chaos if that happened. A cabbie shortage? OK, we can cross now. Watch the storm drain."

"Jesus, I'm going to break an ankle wearing these things. I don't care how great they make my ass look."

"That dress isn't hurting you any, either."

"Mmm…glad you like it."

"It's…it's all right."

"Is that all you can say about it?"

"It… It looks good on you, Tony. It…fits you well."

"Am I making you nervous?"

" _What?_ No! Why?"

"Because I swear to god I can see you sweating."

"It's warm out."

"You _just_ said it was too cold for me to run around in just this dress and you slapped your jacket on me."

"Sudden heat wave?"

"I'm making you nervous, aren't I?"

"That's not the word I would use."

"Ah…I see. So, if I maybe reached over and ran my hand down—"

" _Please_ don't!"

"Are you embarrassing yourself, Steve? Do you need to hold your jacket in front of you? Or maybe you need me to walk in front of you?"

"It's fine. Look, can we get back home already?"

"So, you still find me attractive."

"What?"

"Like this. You still find me attractive."

"Tony, you're gorgeous."

"Yeah, I get that, but that doesn't mean that _you_ would find me attractive."

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Because physically, I'm not a man at the moment, and you fell in love with me when I was a man."

"So?"

"So, I'm not a man now."

"I find women attractive, too, Tony."

"You can find a woman attractive and not want to fuck her."

"Don't say 'fuck,' Tony."

"All right _make love_ to her. Hill and Natasha are both hot, but would I _make love_ to either one of them? Well, maybe I would have before you came along, but the point is I don't necessarily _want to_ now. But that doesn't mean I don't acknowledge that they're both very attractive — if terrifying — women."

"Tony, I find women attractive in _that way_."

"Wait, are you trying to tell me something?"

"You're impossible. Has anyone ever told you that? Another subway grate. Watch out."

"What—? Jesus, I swear they put these things in especially for me. That's how I'm going to die. I'm going to get a heel caught in one of those things and fall over and snap my neck."

"Jesusgod, Tony, don't say that!"

"Well?"

"No, that's not how—"

"Did those guys just _whistle at me?_ "

" _Yes_."

"Did you… Did you _growl_ at them?"

"No!"

"But they got the Stare of Disapproval. Oh, boy, I pity those poor sons-of-bitches."

"Tony—"

"You know, I'm really starting to re-evaluate the way I've treated women over the first forty-three years of my life. It's…like a completely different experience on this side of the gender divide. I almost think every man should live as a woman at least once in his life, just to see how the other half really lives."

"How very magnanimous of you."

"It's not. It's purely selfish. But still, it's not such a bad idea. I suddenly have a new appreciation for all the shit people like Natasha and Hill and Pepper go through on a daily basis. I feel like I should do something about it. What's Gloria Steinem doing these days?"

"Why don't you sleep on it?"

"Is that a come-on?"

"What? No. I'm just saying before you sit up until five in the morning figuring out some way to lead another wave of feminism, maybe you should get a good night's sleep."

"You don't support feminism?"

"What? I never said—"

"Steve, I'm not sure I can be in a relationship with such a backwards-thinking misogynist—"

"That's not what I said at all—"

"Oh, fuck, you know what I want? Gelato. I need chocolate peanut butter cup gelato like _right now_."

"Tony, it's eleven-thirty."

" _Steve_ —"

"I don't even know where to get gelato at this time of night!"

"You have a phone, Steve. Google it."

"You want the gelato so bad. Why don't you Google it?"

"I don't think you understand how pregna— _this_ works when it comes to couples such as we. _I_ get the cravings. _You_ fulfill them. _Comprende?_ "

"I feel like I'm getting the short end of the stick here."

"For god's sake! Don't Google and walk! You're not adept enough at it just yet!"

"OK, I'm finding a lot of places that _have_ gelato but I'm not seeing any that say 'open 24-hours.' You know, back in my day, they had all-night drugstores—"

"Fine. We'll go get your time machine, and we'll hop on back to 1940 and grab ice cream at the soda fountain."

"Do you absolutely need the gelato right this second?"

" _Fuck_ , like you wouldn't believe! The cheap shit from the grocery store might hold me over until tomorrow."

"You won't want it tomorrow."

"No, probably not. But I need it now, Steve. I _need it_."

"You're lucky I love you. Come on, I'll take you home, and then I'll see if I can find a grocery store that's still open."

"What? No, I'm coming with you."

" _Tony_ —"

"Steven, I am coming with you, and that's—"

"Yeah, that yawn really sealed the deal there."

"Yeah, OK, I'm a little tired. But I still want my gelato."

"How 'bout I take you home, and then I'll go out and get some gelato for you. It might not be the exact kind that you want—"

"Well, then what's the point? I want chocolate peanut butter cup gelato. That's exactly what I want."

"I'll see what I can do."

~*~

"Sweet! Gelato!" Clint said as he walked into the kitchen, tablet in hand. He grabbed a spoon from the drawer and made to scoop a spoonful out of the gelato container, but Tony took his own spoon and thwacked Clint hard over the knuckles with it, which earned him a, "The _fuck_ , Stark?"

"Mine," Tony grumbled and pulled the container closer to his person. He'd already spooned some out in a bowl, but sharing was overrated.

Clint rolled his eyes and, as Steve strolled into the kitchen, said, "Hey, Cap, your spoiled-as-fuck other half just hit me with a spoon."

Steve turned serious eyes on him. "Did you try to take his gelato?"

Clint seemed perplexed, and he looked between the gelato container and Steve's face and sputtered before he said, "There's more than enough for two people there!"

Steve didn't waver. "But you tried to take his gelato."

Clint just stared at Steve in disbelief before he turned back to Tony and said a simple, "Spoiled."

"What've you got?" Steve asked Clint and motioned to the tablet in his hand.

Clint shook his head before he pulled the tablet up and began to swipe at it. "Got some intel on Loki's magic glow stick." He swiped to another screen, and Tony leaned over to see what it was. "Seems to have fallen into the hands of someone called Baron von Strucker."

"Baron von Strucker?" Tony said as he licked all the gelato off his spoon. "That's like a ridiculously obvious name for a bad guy. Like seriously, why not just call yourself Moustache-twirling McEvil-Doer? God, sounds like he should be wearing a monocle and have one of those hawk-noses — like Colonel Klink but actually evil."

Steve ignored Tony's musings as he said, "Location?"

"Not sure yet," Clint said and swiped to another screen. "Haven't been able to figure it out."

"No time like the present."

Clint just raised an eyebrow at Steve. "At twelve-thirty in the morning."

"We know the damage that scepter can wreak. Put it in the wrong hands, we could have another event like the one in New York a couple years ago. We had a home-field advantage on that one. No guarantee we would the next time."

"Wait, let me get this straight." He pointed to Tony. "He gets to stuff his face with gelato while I have to look for Baron von Evil-Doer—"

"Moustache-twirling McEvil-Doer."

"—at twelve-thirty in the morning?"

Steve just folded his arms and leveled him with his patented Stare of Disapproval while Tony scooped up another helping of gelato.

"I'm sorry," he said, "are you the one that's sitting here gender-bent, preg— er, _that_ , and horny as fuck?"

Both Clint and Steve turned their gazes on him, Clint somewhat disturbed and Steve pretty bemused.

"Didn't think so," he said and stuck the glob of peanut-buttery, chocolate goodness in his mouth.

"TMI, Stark. Really TMI."

"Clint," Steve said, direction his attention away from Tony, "find out what you can about this Strucker. His contacts, his allies, his last known-whereabouts. I'm getting the feeling he's someone we really don't want having any control over that scepter."

Clint saluted him and said, "Aye-aye, Capt'in. Permission to take a five-minute breather?"

Steve's lips twitched in a small smile. "Four."

"Drive a hard bargain there, Cap." He left the kitchen, and after he did, he called back, "Don't work too hard there, Stark!"

Tony just stuck another glob of chocolate and peanut butter in his mouth and flipped Barton off — or at least flipped off the direction he had gone in.

"Say, Steve?"

"Yeah?"

Steve took the container of gelato and put it in the freezer, and Tony scraped at what remained in the bowl. "You know, we never finished our conversation."

"What conversation?"

Tony licked the remnants of peanut butter and chocolate off his spoon. "The one we were having earlier. About if you were attracted to me."

Steve sighed and dropped his head a little. "I thought we'd settled this."

"Sort of. I mean, I get that you can think someone's attractive and not be attracted _to_ them—"

"Tony, I _am_ attracted to you. Trust me."

"Oh, I do. That half-pitched tent in your pants kind of gives you away — unless there's something going on between you and Barton you haven't told me?"

Steve just flattened his mouth and moved to hide his obvious arousal behind the island counter- top.

"But I think my concern here is…do you prefer me this way?"

"What?"

"Look, I get it. It's more conventional, and as open-minded and progressive a man as you are, there's got to be some of that old-school pre-Vatican II thinking stuffed into your brain, and while I get that you were OK with falling for me when I was a man, I guess I'm just afraid—"

"You think I'm more attracted to you as a woman?"

Tony grimaced a little and dragged the edge of his spoon around the bowl. "Maybe."

He wouldn't look, but he heard Steve let out a somewhat resigned breath. "Tony," he finally said, "I love you. I know that sounds like a cliché, but I love you no matter what shape you're in."

"You don't realize it, but you just quoted an old Alka-Seltzer commercial." At Steve's confused frown, he added, "It's probably on YouTube. I'll show you later."

Steve shook his head as though to shake off Tony's digression and said, "I mean it. I…like you both ways."

"You do?"

Steve shrugged and grimaced almost like he was embarrassed. "Yeah," he said and leaned against the counter-top. "There's good and bad things about both ways."

"So…you'd want me to have…both sets?"

Steve seemingly thought about this a moment before he said, "No, I don't think— It's…kind of hard to explain. I mean, there's things we can do when you're in one form that we can't do when you're in the other and vice versa."

"You know I can't change at-will, right?"

"I know, I— It's hard to explain." He then shrugged a little, smiled a bit, and said, "I like you with a cock, and I like you with a clit."

Tony's jaw dropped, and his spoon clattered against the bowl as it slipped out of his hand. "OK, first of all, can I get that on video? Seriously, no one else will ever believe those words came out of your mouth without you stumbling and stuttering and turning fifty shades of red."

"I was in the army, Tony. I know my way around vulgarities and four-letter words."

"Yeah, Grandpa, nobody calls them 'four-letter words' anymore."

"Focus, Tony."

"OK, fine. So…what's that mean?"

He shrugged again. "I really don't know how to explain it. It's… _you_ I'm attracted to, I think, your mind and your soul and your heart, and the body's just… _nice_ , don't misunderstand me, but also kind of inconsequential. Basically it's whatever you prefer. As long as I have _you_ I'm happy. I'd love you no matter what."

Tony shook his head a little. "Could you be any more perfect?"

Steve grinned, that bashful, intimate sort that he reserved only for Tony. "I could damn well try."

Tony hopped off the chair and moved over to him, pressing against him, the difference in their heights noticeable again now that he'd taken his shoes off because, again, fuck heels.

"You know, if you want, I could take care of that half-mast you've got going on in your pants."

He put gentle hands on Steve's pecs and reached up on his toes to press a light kiss against his jaw. Steve huffed out a breath, and Tony took that opportunity to press a little closer, rubbing his hip ever-so-gently against Steve's rapidly growing interest and reaching to the other side of Steve's jaw to press a matching kiss.

Steve swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, and he took a steadying breath and said, "Are you sure?"

"Hmm?" Tony licked lightly at Steve's pulse-point then began to suck ever-so-gently.

"About this? You haven't been feeling the best lately."

"Yeah?" He let his hands trail down to Steve's waistband, slipping his fingers in between the fabrics of his trousers and his dress shirt. "I'm feeling pretty good now."

Steve swallowed again and fumbled with his hands before he gripped the counter behind them. "Are you sure it's safe?"

"Mmm…very," he said, his lips brushing against Steve's neck. "It's even encouraged."

"By you or by medical professionals?"

"Both."

"Tony—"

"Steve, I can still make some of my own choices. Let me make this one."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"And you never will. It's perfectly safe."

Steve let go of the counter, and he put gentle and tender hands at Tony's waist and moved him away so they could better face each other.

"Tony," he said almost like he was offering an ultimatum, "tell me you want this."

"I want this."

He met Steve's eyes, determined, resolute, a gnawing fire in his belly and a desperate need to have this man inside of him. He'd heard it was a natural desire come this time of the... _ugh_ , gestation, but he couldn't have prepared himself for how desperately he needed to have his wants fulfilled by this man standing before him. It wasn't just sex he needed, it was sex with _Steve_. He needed him, wanted him, had to have him. Steve would take care of him, would love him, would make him feel equal parts safe and blissed out of his mind.

" _Please_ , Steve. Trust me."

Steve hadn't removed his hands from Tony's waist, and he kneaded his fingers in gently and rubbed his thumbs against the satin-covered flesh above Tony's hipbones before he nodded once and said, "OK."

"OK?"

But instead of responding, Steve scooped Tony up into his arms and carried him up the steps like an eager groom on the wedding night. He kicked the door open with his foot, which sent a shot of want straight down to Tony's groin, and the lights automatically came up a fraction as Steve set him down on the bed and climbed on top of him, covering him, arms bracing him over Tony as he dipped his head to capture Tony's lips with his own. Tony reached up to meet him, hands fumbling with Steve's belt as he worked to undo it, and Steve kissed him one more time before he sat back and unhooked it himself, unzipping his pants and untucking his dark shirt, face flushing and pupils dilating.

Tony reached out and grabbed Steve's tie, and he pulled himself up to a sitting position with it and said, "This goes, too," before he loosened it and pulled it away from him. They both worked at a frenzied pace to get the buttons undone on Steve's shirt before Steve just growled and ripped the damned thing open, buttons popping and pinging off various surfaces in the room.

"Damn it. I liked this shirt," he said and looked down at what he'd done.

"I'll buy you another one," Tony said and pushed the maroon fabric away from Steve's broad shoulders. Steve was the type to wear an undershirt, and as he finished pulling the dress shirt away, Tony ran his hands underneath his white t-shirt and felt up to Steve's pectorals, grinning a little as he played with Steve's nipples and earned the quiet moan of want he'd been looking for.

Steve tossed his dress shirt to the floor then nodded at Tony's ensemble that had yet to be touched and said, "Off."

"If you insist," Tony said with a shrug and slunk off the bed. He reached behind and undid the zipper then unhooked the halter band and slid the dark red fabric down his body until it pooled at the floor. Standing in his black-and-red bustier, garter belt, and stockings, he turned to Steve and put his hands to his hips. "This enough, or you want me to…?"

Steve was down to his boxer briefs, his want painfully apparent, and he sat at the edge of the bed and swallowed as he raked his gaze over Tony's body. He opened and closed his mouth a few times, blinking as he went to say something then thought better of it, and Tony tilted his head to the side, hands still at his lace-covered hips and said, "Cat got your tongue, or did you blow a fuse?"

Steve still didn't say anything, preferring to take in the sight before him, and Tony moved over and straddled his waist, grinding his hips against Steve's and draping his arms gently over Steve's shoulders. Through the flimsy fabric, Tony could feel the hot, thick, hardness of Steve's shaft between them, and he canted his hips ever so gently to brush against it, watching as Steve swallowed yet again and closed his eyes. It wasn't quite the same without his own cock between them, and he kind of missed that sensation, but he had to work with what he had, and judging by Steve's face, it was working at the moment.

"Well?" he asked. "Are you going to do something about this, or are we just going to sit here all night?"

Steve put his hands on Tony's thighs, running his fingers beneath the straps that connected the garter to the stockings, and Tony bowed his head so that he and Steve were pressed forehead-to- forehead, and he murmured, "Any time you're ready, babe."

Steve ran his hands over Tony's thighs then up and over his hips and to his waist and belly. He tripped his fingertips over where the slight bulge from Tony's incident was showing then moved his hands up to cup Tony's breasts through the fabric of the bustier, squeezing ever so gently almost like he was trying to map and figure out every part of Tony's body, very similar to what he'd done back when they'd slept together for the first time.

His arms still around Steve's shoulders, he began to play with the hair at the back of his head and said, "What's the matter, Steve? What are you thinking about?"

"I… Nothing. It's nothing."

Tony tipped Steve's head back a little so that he could trace light kisses over his face. "It's something," he murmured. "What is it? Tell me what's wrong."

"It's not…" He shook his head.

" _Steve_ , sweetie, tell me."

"I was just thinking…"

"Yeah?"

Steve swallowed and wouldn't look at him. "That...when you get turned… When you go back to… If you wanted to wear something like this, I wouldn't be against it."

Tony sat back a little, and he put a finger beneath Steve's chin to tip his head up so he could look him in the eye.

"Steve, are you picturing other me dressed up like this?"

Steve's face flushed red and hot, his eyes glazed and his pupils blown wide. "Maybe."

Well, that was an interesting turn of events.

He bowed his head and kissed Steve again, searing, hot, and he leaned his weight into Steve and pushed him back against the bed.

"Mmm…you like that, don't you," he purred against Steve's ear. "Like the thought of me, all muscle and hard lines, trussed up for you in slinky lingerie."

Before he knew it, Steve had scooped him up again and tossed him down onto the bed, flat on his back as Steve braced himself over top of him, spreading Tony's legs apart with his knee and rutting against him as he sucked at his neck.

"All tight and rubbing against me," Tony said and tried not to think about how _good_ Steve's cock felt rubbing against his…pussy sounded so crass. What else could he…? Well, whatever, he didn't want to think about it because he'd lose his train of thought, and the image of Tony — of dick-possessing Tony Stark — dressed up in women's lingerie seemed to be doing crazy things for Steve's libido, and he was nothing if not someone to encourage Steve's libido.

"My cock barely contained by silky lace panties," he continued, barely noticing how Steve had already gotten the lace panties off and was working at the garter belt, "black— _no_ , red— and wet and stained with precome. And you could lay me out— _no_ — pull me up on all fours and maybe just make me hold the position for a while, my cock all hard and red and straining against the silk, and then after a while, you could—"

He moaned out a startled groan as Steve pushed inside of him, filling him, stretching him, rocking into him in slow, measured thrusts, and he tipped his head back and bared his neck, and Steve pressed his mouth to the hollow of Tony's throat and sucked ever so lightly at it.

"You could...you could… _ungh_ — You could take me. Wet your fingers and— and stick them inside me one at a time, working me open slowly— _ungh_ — _so slowly_. Slowly spread me wide. Make me beg for your cock. Spread me open wide and make me beg for it. Rub me. Crane your fingers and hit me in the right place and get me so hard and desperate. Tell me I can't come unless I come on your fingers. Make me cry and beg you to put your dick inside me, the corset so tight on me that I can barely breathe from— _oh_ , _oh, god, Steve— Steve—_ and— and then you'd— you'd finally have me so loose and so wet from— _oh, my god, oh, my god_ — and you'd just plunge right into me, hard and fast like you're trying to teach me a lesson, like you're trying to fuck me into submission. _Oh, god, I've been bad, Steve. I've been so bad. Teach me a lesson, Steve. Fuck me. Fuck— ungh— like that, like—_ Take me down to the hilt, make me take all of you. Because I want it, and you know I want it. And I need it. Because you need to show me. You need me to beg. I'd have to come on your cock. I touch my own, I won't be able to come at all. You'll take it away from me. Come on your cock, or don't come at— _ungh—_ And you'd pump into me so hard and so fast I'd feel it for days afterward, and every time I sat down, all I'd be able to think about is you plunging into me and telling me if I don't come on your cock, I don't come at all. Because I'm yours. I'm yours to do with whatever you want. And then you'd come in me. So much, so much and I'd barely be able to take it all, you'd come so much. But you'd make me take it. You'd come and then you'd plug me up and make me keep it all inside me, make me hold it, keep— _ungh_ — _keep_ me up on all fours, my thighs dripping with lube and come, all filled up with it and a tight plug to keep it there, and you'd make me stay there like that, stay until I couldn't take it anymore, until I was so desperate with want, desperate to come, that I begged you. That I cried and begged you to let me come, and you— and you— _ungh_ — and then you'd do it again. You'd take the plug out and you'd plunge into me again, hard and thick and fast and make me hold myself up on all fours while you took me, while you plunged into me, while you forced me to take all of you, and you'd come in me again, force me to take even more of your— _oh, god_ — fill me up even more, make me take all of it, and you'd do it again and again, fill me up and plug me up until you were ready to— _ungh, god, Steve_ — go again, and I'd be so full of it, so full it would hurt, and you'd make me hold it, make me keep it inside me, like you were trying to mark me, and you wouldn't let me come, and you— and you—"

Steve came with a choked groan, and Tony felt the warm flood of release filling him inside. Steve worked himself through the jerky and arrhythmic thrusts of the aftershocks until he couldn't hold himself up any longer, and after a few moments, he collapsed to the side of him, his softening cock slipping out of Tony with a rather unsexy squelch. Steve gasped and panted a few times, and Tony reached over and said, "Feel better, old man?"

Steve just hummed out a non-response, and Tony leaned over and kissed his forehead. "Told you I'd take care of you."

"You didn't come," Steve mumbled.

"Huh?"

Steve picked himself up a little. "You didn't come."

Tony waved him off. "Don't worry about it. It's fine," he said, even if his body argued rather voraciously with him.

But Steve swallowed and sat up some more. "No," he said and shook his head some. "It's not."

A little unsteady, he got up on his knees and crawled between Tony's legs. Tony made a face at how uncomfortably wet and sticky he was there, but Steve just reached and took him by the underside of his thighs and pushed his stocking-clad legs back and away, spreading him open wide.

"Jesus, Steve, I know your refractory period is—"

But there was a strange look in Steve's eye, hungry and desperate, and he met Tony's gaze and said in a dark and low voice, "Touch yourself."

"Huh?"

Steve nodded at Tony's breasts. "You like it? When someone fondles you?"

"Yeah, I guess, it's all—"

"Touch yourself. Make it feel good."

Tony struggled to sit up some, but with Steve looming over him like he was, he wasn't going anywhere.  "What? Why?"

"I want to try something."

"Look, I don't have anything against masturbating, clearly, but—"

" _Touch. Yourself_."

"Um…little hard to do with the bustier still on."

Steve just growled and reached down as though to rip it off of him, but Tony cried out, "No! Don't rip it! I may want to wear this again!"

He fumbled with the catches and was able to get it off, which was quite the feat to do while flat on his back with his legs spread wide, and he dropped it on the floor beside the bed and reached up to cup his own breasts.

"Like you mean it," Steve said, and Tony raised an eyebrow.

"Do you have some voyeuristic kink you never told me about?"

Steve dug his fingers into the soft and sensitive flesh beneath Tony's thighs, and Tony gasped and began to fondle his breasts, squeezing and tweaking the nipples and rubbing them between his thumb and forefinger, all in the way he was embarrassed to admit felt really damned good, sending quivers of pleasure all the way down to parts of him that had been grossly underserved up to this point of the evening.

Steve watched him for a moment and then, satisfied, let go of Tony's legs a moment and gently pulled his hands away so that he could mouth at Tony's breasts, kissing the soft flesh of each, suckling at the teats, nipping ever-so-lightly at the sensitive and erect peaks, then began to kiss a line from his breastbone down to his abdomen, dragging the tip of his tongue down the exposed flesh to just above the mound of pubic hair where he stopped and nosed at the rounded and swollen flesh that bore the hallmarks of a new life growing within. He kissed the small bump and then, meeting Tony's eyes for a brief moment, moved down even further and licked around the engorged and heretofore ignored nub of his clit.

" _Jesus!_ " he breathed out and pressed his head back against the pillow, curling his fingers into the sheets and squirming as Steve held him wide open and used his mouth on him in the most _glorious_ of ways, forcing him to take this pleasure that was nothing short of mind-blowing. God, he didn't think a tongue could feel so good!

He breathed out Steve's name in desperate want, and without prodding, he reached up and again began to fondle his breasts before moving his fingertips lightly over the sensitive skin of his abdomen, hitching at the barely-contained pleasure that thrummed inside of him.

Steve let go of one thigh to shove his fingers into him, mouthing and licking around the clit as he curled his fingers and began to stroke and flex them, stretching him, and Tony arched his back and let out a desperate whimper, clutching hold of the sheets again as though they could ground him or help him or keep him from going mad with want.

And then Steve brushed his finger against something, and Tony let out the most obscene moan that he was sure had ever been uttered in the history of mankind. Steve mouthed his clit, taking his sweet, sensual time about it, but then he pulled back and began to work it with his thumb, using his other fingers to rub at that _fantastic_ spot inside of him. He could barely catch his breath, and he met Steve's gaze, his own a bit hazy and crowded with lust, and he was sure he slurred out, "Whassat?" but Steve just shushed him and, keeping up the strokes, leaned over him and kissed him, licking a light strip over his bottom lip so that Tony would open his mouth and offer entrance, Tony barely registering the thought that he was being forced to taste himself.

A feeling began to build inside of him, starting small and growing almost exponentially, a yearning warmth pooling in his belly and growing to overtake his whole person. He groaned a little and arched his back, panting harder, desperate, Steve's strokes matching the frantic pace of his heart, and as disgustingly wanton as he was sure anyone had ever been, he came with an obscene whimper, arching his back and bearing his neck, squeezing his eyes shut and calling out Steve's name like a prayer, hands clutching the sheets so hard he was sure his knuckles had gone white.

Steve worked him through the aftershocks, until the muscles and nerves of his altered anatomy had ceased their tremors, and he gasped and panted and kept his eyes shut, and only when he felt Steve lay down beside him did he open his eyes and gaze up at the ceiling, eyes unfocused as he followed the line of shadows therein.

"Was that OK?" Steve asked, and Tony rolled his head and just looked at Steve, blinking dumbly at the nervousness he saw reflected back at him.

"How… Wha… How did you…?"

Steve looked a little sheepish, averting his gaze as he looked down at the rumpled sheets between them. "Nat gave me some stuff to read."

Tony just nodded, swallowing, blinking as he tried to come back to himself from that short otherworldly trip he'd just taken, and he rolled to his side so that he was flush with Steve's sweat- slicked body and said, "Yeah, that... That's definitely happening again."

Steve frowned. "What, now? Are you sure you could—"

Tony waved him off, the motion lazy. "No, not now. But again. Soon."

"OK," Steve said and kissed his forehead.

"And remind me to buy Nat an island as a 'thank you.'"

"How 'bout something more  practical?"

"Fine. Whatever. I'll buy her her own R8. Black with red trim. I think she'd like that."

Steve chuckled a little. "Sure."

Tony closed his eyes and settled into the stillness, but he sensed something was not sitting right with Steve, and he opened his eyes again and turned to face his lover, who, as he had figured, was lying beside him looking all sorts of disturbed and contemplative.

"What, Steve? What's wrong? You did it right. _Trust me_. Ten out of ten. Would totally recommend. I mean, not you. I wouldn't recommend _you_ only because you belong to me and they can get their own goddamned quick-learning super soldier."

"No, it's not that," Steve said, frown covering his face.

"Then, what is it?"

"I'm a little…confused."

"By what? Look, it's not like we haven't done this before—"

He shook his head. "No, not that. It's…" He cringed in embarrassment. "It's stupid."

"It's not stupid, Steve. What is it?"

"It's… I'm a little confused."

"You said. How?"

He heaved out a breath and said, "Well, we were... When I was— I mean I very much enjoyed the sight of you dressed in… But then you started talking about what it would be like if you wore than when you were back to…"

Tony nodded. "Ah, I see. You were fucking me in this body but were picturing me in the other body."

Steve made a squeamish face, but he said, "Don't say 'fucking.'"

Tony rolled his eyes. "OK, you were _making love_ to me like this but picturing me the other way."

Steve grimaced and met his gaze. "Is that bad?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. We're kind of in uncharted territory here. I'm not insulted, if that's what you're worried about. I mean, that…mind-melting orgasm aside — seriously, that was, you have no idea — it's nice to hear that the man I want to spend the rest of my life with still finds me attractive in the form I plan to spend the rest of my life in."

Steve smiled, and he leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss against Tony's lips. Tony returned the kiss in kind before Steve pulled away again.

"And lazy as I'm known to be, can we _please_ get cleaned up so we're not stuck to the sheets come morning?"


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

_"Tony, what were you thinking?_ "

Tony cringed as Pepper's irate voice came over the line. He slumped back into the bed sheets and pressed the heel of one palm into his eye socket while the other held his phone away from his ear lest Pepper's voice shatter his eardrum.

" _Do you know what they're saying? Tony Stark dropped off the map two months ago, and now Captain America is seen going on a_ date _with some mystery woman._ "

"They just saw Tony Stark last night!"

" _Do you want to explain that to them? Do you want to tell them Tony Stark is now a woman? You've got people speculating that you're either locked away in an asylum, in a coma, or dead._ "

"Iron Man was just out a couple weeks ago—"

" _Yeah, Iron Man, Tony, not you. Or not who they recognize as you. What were you thinking? What was_ Steve _thinking? Did he agree to go along with this? Captain America's mystery woman was spotted earlier in the day shopping and having lunch with the Black Widow. They want to know who you are. They're not going to stop until they do!"_

"Peppy! Peppy-pot, calm down!" he said and stretched languidly. God, he felt _good!_ "It's fine. No one's going to care about it in a week's time."

" _The board, Tony! The board cares. You haven't shown your face at a board meeting in two months. They're starting to get suspicious."_

"Why should they care about me? You're the CEO."

" _You own the company. Or you did."_

"I still do."

" _Tony Stark owns the company. No one knows where Tony Stark is, but no one that knows you seems concerned at all —_ least of all _the man you're supposedly dating_. _Who was last seen on a date with a mystery brunette_."

"'An attractive mystery brunette,' Pep. Get the quote right. And besides, it's their own fault for not putting two-and-two together. I still look like me, Pepper. Yeah, more feminine, but if they even stopped to think for a second—"

" _They might just assume Steve has a type._ " She sighed, though it sounded a little like a groan, too. " _Have you at least warned Steve about this? So he knows not to say anything he shouldn't?_ "

"He's not an idiot, Pep. I think he knows not to tell the truth."

" _Is he good at thinking on his feet?_ "

"Depends on the situation."

" _I'd ask if you could for once not answer a question with your dick, but_ —"

"Whoa, hold on! Who said I—" He faked a gasp. "Virginia Potts! What a filthy mind!"

" _Tony!_ "

"Look, how 'bout Iron Man puts in an appearance with the board—"

" _You know the talk about that, don't you? That the suit is running itself or that there's someone else inside the suit? The world thinks Tony Stark disappeared and the Avengers are covering it up_."

"Eh, technically they're not wrong. Tony Stark did sort of disappear, and the Avengers _are_ covering it up."

" _And 'Natasha Carbonell,' really?"_

"What's wrong with that? It's my mother's maiden name."

" _Natasha?_ "

"Thought it sounded kind of exotic and mysterious. I could totally pull off being a 'Natasha.'"

_"And when they look and they don't find a Natasha Carbonell that fits?_ "

"Well, clearly they weren't digging hard enough."

" _Tony!"_

"Pep, sweetie-pie, you've really got to calm down. You're going to give yourself a stroke or an ulcer or something."

" _If Steve really agreed to this, he's more of an idiot than I took him for_."

"What are you talking about? He's a tactical genius."

" _Did he really think this was a good idea?_ "

"He wanted to make me happy. I wanted to go out. It would make me happy, so we went out."

Pepper muttered something under her breath. He couldn't make out what it was, but something told him he didn't want to know in any case.

" _Fine,_ " she finally said. " _I'll just… I'll deal with this._ "

"Buy yourself something pretty."

" _Oh, you bet I will_ ," she said before she said her goodbyes and hung up.

Tony watched the screen go black before he stretched again and set the phone on the nightstand. Good lord, did he feel _wonderful!_ Too wonderful to be bothered by Pepper's admittedly understandable ire with his life choices. It maybe hadn't been his smartest idea, and maybe Steve shouldn't have gone along with it, but what was done was done and there was nothing they could do to change it. Pepper would smooth it over with the board. That was why she got paid the big bucks, and Tony didn't doubt her abilities to ply them with believable excuses for a minute.

He yawned a little and sat up, and though he was content to lay in bed a little longer and take advantage of the peace and quiet, he got up and stretched a little more, feeling sore and used but in the most fantastic way imaginable. There was much to be said for a good round of sex, but a good round of sex with someone you loved more than anything?

Steve's sappiness must have been catching because Tony wasn't sure — especially after last night — that there was anything better than that.

He grabbed some clothes from the drawer and went into the bathroom to freshen up, showering off the remnants of last night's activities in full, noting the bruises on his thighs, bruises that looked a lot like fingerprints. He touched his fingers to the purplish marks and remembered the way Steve had gripped his thighs as he pushed him apart and licked his slit, fondling with his tongue and making Tony writhe in pleasure. He shivered at the memory, his abdominals lurching, and before he knew it, his hand had trailed up to those extremities in question, and though still sore from last night's fucking, he began to work himself with his fingers, bracing against the shower wall and remembering the way Steve had taken him, had forced pleasure through him, had given him the most mind-blowing orgasm he'd ever experienced. He rubbed his clit, thought about the way Steve had growled at him to touch himself, the way Steve had found some magical spot buried within him and forced him to take it, to writhe with it, to breathe Steve's name out like he was his own personal god and Steve had just given him salvation.

He came, tremors running through him in areas he still wasn't used to, gasping lightly lest anyone overhear and think he was in distress. God, if this was the way things were going to be until the end of this pregnancy, he wasn't sure he'd be able to handle it. There was being horny and there was needing to be fucked silly. He wasn't sure even Steve had the stamina for the latter.

He finished up in the shower, dressed, pulled his damp hair back into a ponytail, and made his way down to the kitchen where Natasha and Bruce sat with their respective breakfasts, and Tony began to hum a pleasant little tune to himself as he looked through the cupboards for something to eat.

"Well, you're in a good mood this morning," Bruce said, and Tony turned and grinned at him.

"I am, aren't I?"

"Good night last night?" Natasha asked, her hands clasped around a mug of hot coffee. Tony turned to her and, though noting that her face betrayed sly knowing, he still abandoned his quest for food, went over, and hugged her tight.

"Thank you," he said and straightened up again.

"Don't mention it," she murmured and put the cup of coffee to her lips.

"Oh, yeah," Bruce said with a slight laugh. "Nat helped you get dressed for last night, didn't she?"

Tony just held Natasha's gaze, and she winked at him and said, "Something like that. So, Steve did his homework?"

"He even did the extra credit questions."

"He's a good student."

"Top of the class."

Bruce grimaced. "Why do I think I don't want to know what you guys are talking about?"

"Why do I think you already do?" Natasha asked.

"Why do I come here to eat?"

"Uh, good question," Tony said and went back over to the cabinets. "Last I checked, this was my penthouse, not the communal floor."

"Better selection of food?" Bruce said as Steve came into the kitchen, dressed and sweaty from his run and carrying a bag of fresh bagels. "Better company?"

"I'm going with the food-thing," Natasha said and grabbed a plain bagel from the bag just as Steve had set it down on the island. He looked between Bruce and Natasha, shook his head, and then turned to Tony.

"Hey," he said, looking equal parts coy and bashful and cute.

"Hey, yourself," Tony said in reply. He reached up and pressed a kiss to Steve's mouth, his hands braced on Steve's pectorals, and Steve put his hands to his waist as he returned the chaste and sweet kiss.

"Maybe the entertainment?" Natasha said.

"I really think we're all at risk for developing diabetes," Bruce replied and dug through for an onion bagel.

Tony slid his hands down Steve's torso and put his arms around his waist, and resting his head against Steve's pecs now, he turned in the loose embrace and said, "No one said you two had to eat breakfast here."

"Sweet! Bagels!" Barton said as he bounded into the kitchen, Thor at his heels. Both took seats at the island and began to fight over the bagels and the various plain and flavored cream cheeses, and Tony rolled his eyes while Steve pressed a kiss to the crown of his head.

"I put in the communal floor for a reason!"

Barton tore open an individual portion of strawberry cream cheese and glanced between the others. "I thought this was the communal floor?"

The others all shrugged their agreement with him, and Tony turned to Steve and said with a petulant whine, " _Ste-eve!_ "

"How's that info on Strucker coming?" Steve asked Barton in lieu of telling him to go stuff it, for some reason.

"It's coming," Barton said and shoved a bite of bagel into his mouth.

"He's not in this country, as far as we can tell," Natasha said as she smeared a thin layer of cream cheese over her bagel. "Outside of that, we're running into a dead end. He's dropped off the radar—"

"But he's not working alone. We definitely know that," Barton added.

"I fear for what he might use the scepter," Thor said, piling his bagel with deli meats and cheeses he'd pulled from the fridge. "Even Loki knew not what power it possessed. I fear for what trouble a mere mortal may cause with it."

"Probably the usual," Bruce said and ate his bagel…plain. Weirdo. "Develop an army. Take over the world. Hey, did anyone ever stop to ask these guys what they plan on doing with the world once they take it over?"

Barton snorted a laugh. "They're not smart enough to think that far ahead. They make it up as they go along. Probably enslave certain groups, reward other groups, make the rest of us cower in fear. I swear it's 'cause most of these guys have Daddy-issues of some kind. Have you ever seen one of these idiots that came from a loving and stable home?"

Thor opened his mouth to protest, but Barton said before he could, "Yeah, I'm sure Frigga and the All-Father were just spectacular parents to you, but I'm guessing your crazy brother didn't get the same encouragement?"

Thor frowned a bit. "Perhaps they did favor one of us over the other, and Loki did feel himself to be slighted in affections from both Father and Mother."

Barton made a gesture as though to say Thor had proven his point, and Tony frowned and said, "Howard was a complete tool to me, but you don't see me out there trying to take over the world. I mean, what would I even do with an entire world, anyway?"

Barton shrugged. "Don't know, but we'll never find out."

"Hey, I could totally take over the world if I wanted to."

"Sure," Bruce said, "but then you'd just outsource the running of it to Pepper."

"Yeah, and like she wouldn't have enough things to do," Barton said with a disappointed shake of his head.

"I would not take over the world just to make Pepper run it for me."

The four seated at the island just stopped mid-motion and turned to him, all varying degrees of 'Are you kidding?' playing out over their faces.

"But she's _good_ at that stuff!" he offered as a defense.

"Whatever," Barton said. "Bad guys are a pain in the ass, but I guess if there weren't any, we'd be out of a job. God, we'd have to work like _normal people._ "

The rest offered varying nods of reluctant agreement, and Tony pulled away from Steve and went over to get himself one of the bagels that remained.

"Well, that was fast," Natasha said as she looked down at her tablet.

"What?" Tony asked and cut into a bagel.

Natasha turned the tablet toward him, and he looked down to see a photo posted to one of the gossip sites that had to have been taken not half-an-hour ago of Steve on his post-run bagel-run with the headline, CAPTAIN AMERICA ON DATE WITH MYSTERY WOMAN: WE'RE  JUST  GOOD FRIENDS.

"Oh, yeah," Steve said as he looked over Tony's shoulder to read the headline. "They cornered me when I was out for my run. Figured it wasn't any of their business."

"You know they don't believe you for a second, right?" Barton said waving a plastic knife around in the air between smearing the other half of his bagel with the strawberry cream cheese.

Steve just shrugged. "It's still none of their business."

"But you and Tony were very public about your relationship," Bruce said, concern tingeing his voice. "Now all of a sudden Tony's disappeared from sight and you're out and about with some mystery woman—"

" _Attractive_ mystery woman," Tony amended. "Why does everyone forget that?"

Bruce ignored him and continued on with his point. "You've got to admit it's raising a lot of eyebrows, and with good reason. Tony disappears, and suddenly you're out with someone that was also spotted getting manicures with Nat yesterday."

He shot a pointed look Natasha's direction, but she just shrugged and said, "It's about time we got some more estrogen up in this bitch."

Tony was about to say something when Steve's phone made a noise, and he watched as Steve pulled his phone from his pocket and made a slight face at what he found there.

"Message from Sam," he murmured before Tony could ask. "Been another sighting."

"Of your pal?" Barton asked.

"Yeah," he said and exhaled a breath. He exchanged a look with Tony, and Tony smiled a little at him and said, "You can go if you need to. You know that."

But Steve shook his head and said, "I can't leave—"

"Steve, I'm not made of glass. I'll be OK if you go out looking for your buddy for a few days. And the Avengers aren't _that_ incompetent that we couldn't get along without you for a little while."

"Sometimes I don't know why I even bother," he muttered, but Tony knew he was talking not about discussing things with Tony but looking for Barnes.

He put his hands to Steve's face, a palm against each cheek, and he tilted Steve's head forward so that Steve was forced to look at him. "Because he's your friend, and because you're not the type to leave a man behind. You'd do it for any of us. And because you feel guilty because you think it's your fault he's even like that in the first place."

Steve reached up and took a gentle hold of Tony's wrists, holding his hands against his face. He closed his eyes and turned his head some, and he pressed a gentle kiss against Tony's palm then nestled his face gently against the marked skin.

"You want to come with me?" he asked. "Iron Man, I mean. Give the gossips more to talk about."

"I thought you didn't want to encourage it?"

He shrugged but didn't lessen his hold on Tony's wrists any, and Tony began to wonder if there was something to what Natasha had been saying about him being Steve's anchor to the present. "Might be fun?" he said and opened his eyes, meeting Tony's gaze.

"And what about…?" He glanced down to his abdomen, and Steve glanced down as well before he shrugged.

"Stay out of anything remotely resembling danger and listen to everything I say," he said.

"Do you not know me at all?"

Steve laughed a little. "It was worth a shot."

"Can I still go?"

Steve almost seemed bashful as he said, "I'd…kind of like it if you did."

Tony smiled and reached up and pressed a kiss to his lips, and from somewhere behind him, he heard Barton groan and muttered, "Well, that's it. I've finally gotten diabetes from those two. If you'll excuse me, I have to go get a shot of insulin before I go into some sort of sugar shock."

"It's not that bad!" Bruce said.

"What?" Barton sounded personally offended. "You're the one that started it!"

Tony pulled away from Steve, and, still smiling at him, eyes focused on him, said to the collected group, "No one asked the rest of you to be here."

"But we're a team, Stark," Barton said. "Like the Musketeers. One for all and all for one. Hey, Cap, what was that cheesy rallying cry you were thinking of trying out? 'Avengers-something,' wasn't it?"

"Assemble," Natasha supplied.

"No, that wasn't it."

"It was 'assemble,'" Bruce concurred.

"No," Barton muttered. "Even Cap's not that corny."

But Steve just kept his focus on Tony, and he bumped his nose gently against Tony's and said, "Come on. Sam'll be getting impatient."

"He'll also think you've lost your damned mind bringing Stark along," Barton said. Steve just scoffed and rolled his eyes. "No, he won't."

~*~

"Have you lost your damned mind?"

Steve just sighed while Tony relaxed into the jet's pilot's seat and began to ready for takeoff.

"No, man, just, no. Look, I get that you two have some sort of weird bond going on and everything, and I get that you don't want to be separated from each other or whatever, but dude, you really think it's safe?"

"I am safer in that Iron Man suit than either of you, I have more firepower at my disposal—"

"Dude, Captain America was just spotted having dinner with a hot brunette last night—"

" _Thank you!_ I knew you were my favorite for a reason."

"—and now suddenly the next day he's out on the hunt with Iron Man? Steve, the public…they're fickle. You want Cap getting a reputation as a player?"

Steve shook his head and rested his arms atop the seat, leaning his weight against it. "Doesn't matter what the public thinks—"

"No, see, that's where you're wrong. Because it does. It totally does. If you really don't want to be separated from your…"

Tony glanced back and watched as Wilson fought for something he could say that wasn't… insulting? Was he really thinking of ways of insulting Tony?

"What are you?" he finally asked, looking at Tony. "Are you still a dude but trapped in a chick's body? Are you a chick now? Are you both? Like, what do I call you? I don't want to insult you or anything. I just want to know what to call you so Cap doesn't kick my ass for besmirching your virtue or something."

"You could call me 'Tony,'" he said and raised an eyebrow.

"No, I get that, but—"

"We're still engaged," Steve said. "How 'bout just fiancé?"

Wilson started to say something, but Tony cut in, "Yeah, we need to have a talk about that." He could feel the air in the jet change, tension suddenly seeping in where there had been none.

"Why?" Steve asked, the word hesitant in tripping over his tongue.

"Because," he said and flipped a few switches, "I…might be a bit more traditional than I want to admit."

"Meaning?"  Wilson asked.

"Well," he said and spun the chair some to look back at Steve. "If this is really happening, if I'm really having this kid, or if this doesn't work out to our benefit—"

"You're not dying, Tony."

"You don't know that, Steve. It could happen, and if it does, I just want…" He scowled a little and folded his arms, averting his gaze. "I just…I want to be able to say I was married."

The sudden tension dissipated, and Steve crouched down and gazed up at him, putting his hands atop Tony's arms.

"Do you mean that?" he asked, his voice soft and tender.

But Tony still wouldn't meet his gaze, and he shrugged and said, "It's stupid, I know—"

"Hey," Steve said, his voice still taking on a gentle tone, "no it's not. You really want to get married?"

He shrugged. "I don't know how we'd do it. No clerk would believe I'm legally Tony Stark."

"I don't know," Wilson said. "Things have gotten really weird over the last few years. They might believe Tony Stark got turned into a woman. Would totally explain your sudden disappearance and the fact that both Cap and Nat were seen around town with the same gorgeous mystery woman."

"Have I told you lately, Wilson, that you're my favorite?"

"If you really want to do this," Steve said, "we'll find a way to make it work. I wasn't sure if you actually still wanted to get married."

"Look, I'm not saying you absolutely _have_ to get married as soon as you get knocked up, but I just… I want to marry you, and who am I kidding? I'm not getting any younger. I might be dead in five months—" Steve opened his mouth to protest that, but Tony reached out and put a hand over his mouth to stop him before he could. "And if I don't, I'm still going to spend the rest of my life with you. Why the hell not? Besides, I could use the tax break."

He let his hand drop from Steve's mouth, and Steve reached up and kissed him. Tony closed his eyes as their lips met, but he still heard Wilson mutter, "Ugh. Looks like I'm joining the Diabetes Club," just as several more footsteps announced their presence, and Steve and Tony broke their kiss to see Barton and Thor stomping onto the jet, Barton with his bow and quiver and Thor with Mjolnir.

Steve stood back up and said, "You really don't have to—"

"Nah, man," Barton said and pushed Tony out of the pilot's seat. Tony went to protest, but he just folded his arms and stood beside Steve as Barton explained, "No biggie. Nat and Bruce are holding down the fort with Hill. They'll let us know if they need us to make a diversion to anywhere else."

He flipped some switches and readied the plane for takeoff, and Steve just shrugged at Tony like he wasn't sure what the aim was but he wasn't about to fight it. Which was weird for Steve because Steve was the very definition of a fighter, but whatever, he'd worry about it later.

They once again found themselves in an old Soviet bloc country, and Tony was really wishing that Steve's old pal would take a detour and head on down to some tropical island paradise for a change. OK, not like he or Steve had ever done one of these runs before, but in principal. He was starting to feel like he could use a vacation.

When they arrived at the location, they found a big, old factory up in flames, several presumed Hydra agents running around trying to save themselves, and in the mess of it, a haunted man with a metal arm who looked to be the cause of the destruction. Tony, in the suit save for the helmet, grabbed hold of Steve's arm before he could jump off the jet, and he bored his gaze into Steve's and said, " _Don't_ do anything stupid. He might not recognize you. Don't spook the shit out of him trying to make him remember."

Steve just nodded and finished fastening his helmet before he jumped, sans parachute, and Tony ran over to the open loading hatch and yelled after him, " _What the hell did I tell you about pulling that shit!_ "

He snapped his helmet on, and as soon as his interface had loaded, he took off after Steve, telling JARVIS, "J, get me to that idiot before he makes a Steve-shaped splat on the ground."

" _I believe Captain Rogers was counting on your chasing after him_ ," JARVIS replied, and Tony rolled his eyes and sped up toward the falling red, white, and blue blur, and as he got within reach of him, he grabbed him by the waist and clung to him, pulling him up and away from the ground they were a little too close to.

" _I knew you'd catch me_ ," Steve told him over the comm line, a little too smug about it, to be honest.

"Seriously, Steve, my blood pressure can't take this shit. Would you learn to use a fucking parachute?"

" _Why? I have you for that, don't I?_ "

"Yeah, well, on the off-chance I'm not there to catch you," he replied and flew Steve over the burning ashes of the former Hydra compound and dropped him down in a more wooded area. "J, do a scan for life signs," he said and stood beside Steve. "Focus in on anyone with artificial improvements. Arms, legs, whatever." He directed his attention to Steve and said, "Barton, Thor, and Wilson will take care of the remaining Hydra goons. I'll give them cover if I need to, but other than that, I'm all yours."

Steve glanced to him, side-eyeing him with a smile. "Thanks," he said as they began to make their way back to the flaming building.

"Don't mention it. Just remember that I expect the same from you. Not that there's a chance that anything like that could happen, but— Wait, what am I talking about? Is your best friend being turned into a Soviet assassin any more far-fetched than me being turned into a woman?"

"No," Steve said, "it's a lot more believable." He swung the shield out and cracked a Hydra agent in the skull, sending the poor bastard bleeding to the ground, and Tony turned and fired a repulsor at another one that had snuck out of the bush.

"Jesus, these fuckers don't want to quit, do they?" he muttered.

"True believers," Steve replied and dodged gunfire before he tossed his shield at the target. "They'll fight for it until their dying breath," he said and caught the shield as it came back to him.

"Yeah, like someone else I know," he said and fired a few more shots.

Steve didn't say anything, but Tony could feel the disapproval coming through the comm. Or maybe that was the 'bond' that nutcase claimed they shared. In any case, Tony knew Steve wasn't too thrilled with the comparison, but he ignored it and instead fought to get closer to the building where JARVIS informed him their metal-armed target still was hiding out, and the read of the heat signatures, of course, had him in a part of the building that would be difficult to access.

He wondered if Steve's old pal was trying to end it once and for all.

Not something he needed to mention to Steve, though, as Steve wouldn't take well to it, and as they approached their destination, men running, arrows flying, lightning flashing, Wilson…doing whatever it was he did, Steve yelled to him, "Is he in there?"

"Yeah, but—"

But, of course, Steve didn't listen, and once he got clear of it, he made a dash for the gaping hole in the side of the building, disappearing into the smoke and flames. Tony cursed a blue streak that earned him a huge laugh from Barton, blasted a few more goons, and then blasted his way into the building (which…was stupid, but he was pissed at Steve for pulling this bullshit again, and better blast the building than Steve). He did a scan, wondered how that idiot was even surviving the heat and the smoke, and then found the two closer to the center of the building, beams creaking and glass shattering and destruction raining down all over them.

Steve and his old pal stood maybe ten feet apart, facing each other, Barnes looking like he hadn't slept in forever, haunted, and maybe even a little out of it. Steve had deposed himself of his helmet, and he was doing his best to talk to Barnes in a calm, rational way, urging him to remember, downright begging him. Barnes wasn't buying it, staring back at Steve with a blank face and eyes that looked like maybe, just maybe somewhere in the back of his mind he remembered…something, and JARVIS read something out to Tony about heat and oxygen levels and smoke and shit, and Tony said to Steve over the comm, "Honey, you've got thirty seconds before I'm hauling your ass out of here."

But Steve ignored him and continued trying to talk some…sense, he supposed he'd call it…into Barnes, and Barnes frowned a little and blinked at Steve, and he opened his mouth like he was about to say something — something that would indicate that he remembered — when Tony heard the unmistakable creak and groan of destabilizing metal, and he glanced up just in time to see a gigantic girder come crashing down toward him.

"Shit!" he yelled and just cleared the steel as it came down beside him, and that was enough to turn Steve's attention away from Barnes and toward him. Tony looked up just in time to see panic come into Barnes's eyes as he looked between Steve and Tony, and Steve glanced to Tony then back to Barnes, and in that split second, another girder came crashing down, trapping Tony flat on his back beneath it.

"Shit, _fuck!_ " he yelled as his interface shorted a bit before it rebooted and came back online. He lost sight of what happened with Steve and Barnes, but the pressure of the steel against his suit lifted, and he saw Steve straining as he pulled the girder off of him, and once he'd got it lifted high enough, Tony was able to use the jets to blast his way away from the steel and into the open air.

Steve dropped the girder, and he turned to Tony and said, "Get out of here."

"Fine by me," Tony said, grabbed Steve by the waist, and shot up through a hole in the ceiling and into the sky, Steve screaming at him to put him down the entire time. He flew them far enough away from the inferno before he settled them both down where Barton had left the jet, and Steve shoved away from him, looking sweaty and smoky and, he had to say, pretty damned pissed off.

"So," Barton said as he came down the open loading hatch because evidently in the time Steve and Tony had been in the inferno, the others had finished whatever it was they were doing. "Another fruitless search?"

But Steve was irate, pacing, running a hand through his cinder-strewn hair, and he turned back to Tony and said, "I had him! I fucking had him!"

"I know, babe. I know. But that building was about to come down around all of us—"

Steve turned on him, fury in his eyes. "Did I ask you to follow me?" he asked, seething, and even Barton seemed surprised by his tone of voice.

Tony just blinked, and he took the helmet off so he could look Steve in the eye, but not before he exchanged a perplexed look with Barton and said, "Steve, if I hadn't, you would have stayed there until that goddamned building collapsed on top of both of you."

"Yeah? Well, maybe you should have let it."

Barton whistled low, and Tony winced and said, "Uh, yeah, that's the sort of talk I really want to hear coming from my fiancé—"

But Steve just seethed a little more before he stormed up the ramp and into the jet, and Tony and Barton followed after. Steve, helmet in his grasp, whipped it at the side of the jet, making Barton and Tony both jump a little, and it even caught Thor and Wilson by surprise, who were standing up by the pilot's seat. Wilson looked to Barton for explanation, but Barton just put a hand up and shook his head a little bit as though to say _don't ask_.

Tony set his own helmet down, and he went over to Steve and reached up to put his gauntleted fingers to Steve's face and said, "Honey, it's OK. You'll get him next time."

He forced out a laugh. "Yeah, how long have we been saying that? I had him. I fucking had him. I had him, and—"

He turned to Tony, and it was like a light clicked on over his head. His lips parted as realization dawned, and Tony shivered as he saw a little hardness come into Steve's eyes, like he suddenly realized _why_ he'd lost Barnes yet again. He watched as Steve moistened his lips, seemingly contemplated something, then nodded, resolute at whatever he'd decided.

"You're off the team."

Tony's jaw dropped. " _Excuse me?"_

"You're grounded, Tony. From this point on."

Tony blinked, perplexed at this sudden and questionable change of heart. "And what reason could you possibly have for issuing what might be the stupidest order you've ever given?"

"Tony, I can't be out there doing what I have to do if I have to worry about you getting yourself into trouble—"

"So, wait, you don't trust me?"

"Tony, no," Steve said with an exhale of breath. "I trust you. I just… I don't trust myself."

If Steve had expected Tony to offer him sympathy for that, he was sorely mistaken. Tony stepped up to him, hands on his hips and said, "Yeah? Well, that's not my problem."

"Tony, listen—"

"No, Steve, _you_ listen. I don't think you _get it_. I am not your property. I am not some slave you can order around."

"No, but you're a teammate, and you're under my command—"

"But this isn't about me being a teammate, is it, _Steve?_ This isn't about me not being able to fulfill my duties as Iron Man. I almost got crushed through no fault of my own—"

"Amazingly," Barton muttered, but Tony ignored him and pressed on.

"—and you're mad at me about that." He tilted his head. "Or is it something more? Is it because you were forced to make a choice between seeing if I was OK and chasing after your precious Bucky, and you went with the option you felt forced into, not the one that you wanted."

Steve's eyes narrowed, and his voice was low as he said, "Don't ever say that."

"It's the truth, isn't it? You'd rather chase after your pal, but you're stuck here with me."

"I'm not _stuck_ with you, Tony."

"But you'd rather chase after your precious little Bucky. Because finding your pal and being with your little pal is a much more enticing prospect than putting up with me."

Steve stepped a little closer to him. "Stop it before you say something you'll regret."

"I don't regret a goddamned thing."

"Tony, I mean it. Stop it."

"Stop _ordering me around_ , Steve! I am _not_ your property. I am not someone you own. I have had my body fucked with against my will. I've been forced into being a fucking human _incubator_. My life is tied into the life of a parasite that's growing inside of me, and I could very well _die_ if this parasite at any point dies before I fucking _give birth to it_. Because this is what my life is now. This is what I'm relegated to. I'm a plaything to some nutcase from the cosmos. And _you_ —" He jabbed him hard in the sternum. "You of _all_ people should be on your fucking knees begging for forgiveness. This is all your goddamned fault."

"Yeah, I'm the one that did that to you."

He narrowed his eyes and fought very, very hard from reaching up with the gauntlet and wrapping metal fingers around Steve's neck.

"You're the one that fucked me and got me pregnant."

That seemed to surprise Steve long enough to at least get him to think before he said anything.

"Are you implying something by that?" he asked, one eyebrow raised in less question and more a challenge.

"What? That maybe you did it on purpose? That you'd finally gotten me as you'd actually be able to accept me? That you knew I'd have to stay like this if you got me like that?"

"There were two of us in that room, and you didn't say a goddamned word about protection."

"Did you give me a chance? The way you just threw me on the—"

"I didn't force you to do _anything_. You were like that for a week. There was more than one occasion it could have happened."

"Look, guys?" Barton said, cutting in and earning death glares from both of them. He shivered and said, "Uh, yeah, look, clearly you two have a _lot_ to talk about, but why don't we can it for the time being, get back to New York, and then you two can go for round two, all right? Sound like a plan to you? Sounds like a plan to me." He clapped his hands together and moved toward the front of the jet. "All right, New York, here we come!"

But Tony couldn't leave well-enough alone, and he turned back to Steve and said, "Take it back."

"What?"

"Say I'm on the team."

Steve let his eyes roam over every inch of Tony's face before he said a low and succinct, "No."

Tony inhaled deeply, and he nodded once and put his helmet back on. Steve went to protest, but Tony switched the voice modulator on so he sounded like his old self again and said, "Get yourselves back to New York."

"Tony!" Steve called out, but Tony just clomped down the loading ramp, and just as the hatch began to close, he took off into the sky, switching the communicator off and telling JARVIS to tell Steve to go fuck himself when JARVIS intoned that Steve was trying to message him.

"And use those exact words, J," he said. "It's the only fucking he's going to be getting for a while."

~*~

Tony made it back to New York long before the others did, and he sequestered himself in his lab and began to play with upgrades and specs and other things the team would need. _His_ team. The one he was still on. Because Steve could go fuck himself if he thought he was taking Iron Man away from him, too. He had no fucking autonomy over his own goddamned body, but he could still fucking be Iron Man, and damn Steve to hell for thinking he could take that away from him.

He might have gotten a little rough with Steve's uniform armor upgrades. He might have shredded the prototype uniform instead of actually repairing it, but whatever. Evidently that version was a piece of shit, so hey, live and learn. And he was so immersed in what he was doing that he didn't bother to listen to JARVIS announce anything or anyone or even note he'd been down there for several hours without a break.

Not until Steve himself showed up in the lab, and Tony glanced up and said, "Uh, J, what'd we say about letting in just any old riffraff off the street?"

" _I beg your pardon, Sir, but you did not issue any orders precluding the entrance of Captain Rogers into your lab."_

"Traitor," he muttered under his breath before he turned back to Steve. "Come to apologize?"

Steve had changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt by this point, and he rolled his eyes as he moved closer to Tony's personal space.

"Tony, listen—"

Tony jumped up and moved away from him. "Yeah, no, if you're just going to pull that shit again, no, there's nothing to listen to. You are _not_ taking Iron Man away from me."

"Just for a little while," Steve said, and there was almost a plea to his voice. "Tony, I can't lead the team to the best of my ability if you're out there potentially getting hurt."

"Well, that's something for _you_ to deal with, not me," he said and moved over to another work table. "I know my abilities, Steve. I know what I'm capable of. I know what I can do. I'm not some precious little flower you can just stick under a bell jar."

"Tony, I never said I wanted to—"

"You're a sexist son-of-a-bitch, you know that? I never realized that about you before. You're a sexist son-of-a-bitch." He let out a bitter laugh and swiped at a few screens. "I mean, you're from the Stone Age, so I guess I can't hold it against you too much—"

"Tony, this has nothing to do with you being a woman."

"Yeah? Then what's it about, Steve?"

Steve groaned and ran a frustrated hand through his hair before he yelled out, "You're pregnant, Tony!"

Tony scowled and put his hands on his hips. "Say it a little louder, Steve. Not quite sure they heard you in Jersey."

Steve just moved closer and said, "You're pregnant, Tony, and if what Esmeralda said is true, and if what Thor says about her is true, then it's incredibly high-risk, and I'm not having you risk giving yourself a miscarriage out there."

"I know my limitations, Steve."

"Do you? Who's the one that has to come rescue you when you've been down here for over three days without food or sleep?"

Tony bristled a bit before he said, "That's different."

"How?" Steve asked and folded his arms. "Explain to me how it's different."

"It just is, Steve! I don't have time to explain— Shouldn't you be out looking for your pal?"

"Don't bring Bucky into this."

"Why not? That's how this all started, isn't it? Your buddy Wilson messaged you that there was a sighting of your little pal, and you decided you had to drop everything to run and chase after something that, let's face it, is pretty much a pipe dream at this point."

Steve glowered as he stepped closer. "You told me to go."

"Yeah?" Tony said and stepped closer, hands still at his hips. "You asked me to go with you."

Tony knew he'd got him there. Steve had asked him to go. Steve had wanted him to go. Steve had no one to blame for this whole thing but himself.

"Take. It. Back," Tony finally said. "I can be Iron Man. You know I can be Iron Man. There's nothing to stop me. Put me back on the team. Say you're sorry. Say you were wrong about kicking me off the team or get the hell out of my sight."

They squared off against each other, gazes locked, postures rigid and ready to pounce, until Steve shook his head some and broke the contact, and without a word, he stormed off to the door and let himself out.

Tony closed his eyes, the lab going silent enough to hear a pin drop, and he felt some well of emotion build up inside of him until he couldn't take it any longer. He choked out a few gasps before he realized what was happening, and as the tears streamed down his face, he glanced up at the ceiling and said, "J, you tell anyone about this, and I'm dismantling you and donating you to DeVry."

" _A most frightening prospect, Sir_."

He slumped down in a chair and sobbed it out, not really sure why he was crying or what exactly he was crying for but not able to temper it just the same. He let the tears fall where they may, but he wiped his nose with his sleeve and tried to snuffle back some mucus, but when that didn't work, he found a roll of shop paper towels and blew his nose into the not-exactly-soft product, hoping none of the others would be brave enough to venture down to the dungeon after they'd seen the murderous expression on Steve's face.

He didn't know how long he sat there crying. Longer than he'd ever admit to himself, probably, but once he'd been able to wrestle control of his emotions again, he snuffled and wiped away the last vestiges of discomfort and said, "OK, J, where were we?"

He stayed down there a little while longer before he figured he should venture out in search of, well, he told himself it was food but a part of him wanted to see where Steve had gone no matter how pissed he still was at him. He went up to the penthouse and padded through the living room, finding no sign of Steve. He went into the kitchen and glanced around, but again, no sign of Steve.

Thinking maybe Steve had turned in early after their fight, he went upstairs into the bedroom, but the bedclothes were completely untouched.

"Don't tell me he went over to Wilson's," he muttered.

" _I'm sorry, Sir, but Mr. Wilson is currently down in the communal lounge with the rest of the Avengers._ "

"Is Steve with them?"

There was a brief pause, and Tony would argue it was JARVIS trying to decide how to best break the news to him.

" _I’m sorry, Sir,"_ he said, his tone sounding…grave for an AI, " _but Captain Rogers left the tower immediately after your last discussion in the lab. He has turned off his communication devices._ "

He let out a heavy sigh. "He ran away from home and he doesn't want us to find him."

" _I believe he is more blowing off steam, as they say, and does not wish to be bothered._ "

"Yeah, well, he just guaranteed himself a tracking chip now. What's our best option for that, J? Neck? Skull?"

" _I should think you would wish to run the prospect of implanting illegal tracking devices into Captain Rogers's person by Captain Rogers himself before making any definite decisions._ "

"What do you mean 'illegal'? They chip pets all the time, J!"

" _I was unaware of the fact that you wished me to categorize Captain Rogers as an 'animal companion.' Based on your security protocols, I had presumed you considered him to be of a higher security clearance than either Miss Potts or Colonel Rhodes, who I do not believe you have voiced consideration to tracking._ "

"Yeah, well, I didn't agree to marry either one of them, J, and I am not currently pregnant with the spawn of either one of them, either. Um…for future reference, let's maybe not inform Miss Potts about how flippant I was about not agreeing to marry her."

" _I am of the belief that Miss Potts is more than delighted with your betrothal to the Captain, Sir. In fact, I believe she voiced the exact words, 'God help him,' when made aware of the news."_

"Wait, help Steve or help me?"

" _I believe she was speaking of the Captain._ "

"Uh, J, that's not exactly the sort of thing you say when you're congratulating someone on their upcoming nuptials."

" _If it helps, I detected a smile and a lightness to her voice that seemed to imply she was pleased by the situation and perhaps felt that you had finally met your match_."

"Whatever," he said and left the bedroom. "You said everyone's down on the common floor, right?"

" _Indeed, Sir. Agent Hill and Colonel Rhodes are also present._ "

"Full house," he muttered under his breath and made his way to the elevator. He let JARVIS take him down to the communal floor, and he stepped into a heated and hushed discussion that immediately ceased as soon as his presence was felt. All eyes present turned toward him, and he felt judged for only a second before Barton said in a somewhat teasing voice, "So. What'd you and the Cap fight about this time?"

Tony scowled and moved to sit on the couch where Natasha had moved over to offer him a spot. "Nothing," he muttered but didn't look at anyone. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hill and Natasha exchange looks, and he then felt Natasha put a gentle hand on his back and give it a few soothing strokes.

"He'll be back, _solnyshko_. You know how he can get."

"Yeah," Sam said, "nicest guy in the world. I mean, he's Captain America. But man, does that guy have a temper sometimes."

"Do you need me to kick his ass?" Rhodey asked. "Say the word, Tones, and I will kick his ass. I don't care if he is Captain America. He's not above reproach."

"No," he said with a sigh. "You don't have to kick his ass." He twitched a bitter smile and added, "I'll put the fucking Iron Man suit on and do it my goddamned self."

"Tony, he…he worries," Natasha said, and Tony turned betrayed eyes on her.

"She's right," Hill said, and Tony turned to her in annoyance. "Steve's… Steve's a very…"

Natasha just continued to rub soothing strokes down his back. "Steve's a very progressive-minded guy for the era he was born in. But there's a part of him that's still a bit—"

She hesitated for the right word to use, and Bruce chimed in with, "Old-fashioned."

Tony raised an eyebrow at them. "Are you defending him?"

"We're not defending, Tony," Bruce said. "We're trying to get you to understand."

"Understand what?"

Hill and Natasha once again exchanged looks, and it was Hill that said, "For all that Steve understands the…special circumstances of this situation, there's a part of him that sees it completely on the surface and—"

"He sees you as the fair maiden that you are and understands you to be thick with his child," Thor said.

"Yeah, that's not helpful, pal," Barton said.

"But it's not untrue," Natasha said and caught his attention. He turned to her, and there was a softness in her green irises, and he believed her that he wasn't entirely defending Steve, just explaining the situation.

"Steve _knows_ you're not really a woman," she continued, "and he knows you want to go back to the way you were, but there's a part of him that just sees this whole thing on the surface, and maybe it is just an old-fashioned sense that's completely ingrained in him and will never be fully wiped, but he sees you as the person — the _woman_ — he's in love with that's carrying his child, and that terrifies him because Steve has it in him to protect the people he loves, and if anything were to happen to you..."

"He'd fail in his mission."

"Kind of, yeah, but more than that, he'd lose the very weak grasp he has on reality."

He nodded, and Wilson said, "Look, Tony," and he turned his attention to him.

"Steve's preoccupied a lot of the time thinking about Barnes. But except this last time, he hasn't actually been the one out there looking for him. I do that. Clint does that. Natasha does that. He stays here in New York with you and does your Avenger-business. I know you think Steve cares more about him than he does you, but I'm telling you, man, that's _not_ the case. I didn't actually know him before you and he got together, but I know him now, and man, he thinks the sun rises and sets with you. He thinks you can do anything. He thinks you're the smartest person he's ever known."

"Really?" Bruce asked, a wounded tone in his voice, and Tony couldn't tell if he was actually hurt or was faking it for humor. Judging by the smirks it netted him, Tony was certain he was going for humor.

"Yeah, look, Tones," Rhodey said, and Tony turned his attention to him next, "if he hurt you, I will totally kick his ass. You know that. But he does love you, and he does think the world of you. The guy's too damned earnest about that sort of thing to lie about it. Even if you kind of have to translate what he's saying into English."

"Huh?"

"Cap's not exactly the most emotional guy. You kind of have to guess at what he's saying," Barton said, and Tony found it hard to find fault with that. Tony knew and understood he was much more effusive with emotion than Steve ever would be, but if nothing else, he'd become rather adept in reading Steve in the two years that he'd known him, and Steve's affections were often shown in actions rather than words. He was pretty sure most of it was his upbringing and his generation — god help him for making the comparison, but Howard was of a similar emotionally- repressed mindset — but part of it probably was that Steve just wasn't that kind of guy. Steve didn't say 'I love you' a lot; Tony was much more inclined to utter those three little words. But Steve didn't have to say it. It was in the way he smiled at Tony, the way he looked at him, the way he brushed his fingers over his skin, and the way he did everything in his power to make Tony happy.

Jesus Christ, was he fucking tearing up again?

He reached up to brush at the corners of his eyes and hoped no one saw, but he saw several confused sets of eyes glancing at each other and a few concerned ones stare right at him. He shook his head and waved off their concern and said, "So, what do I do then?"

"Nothing," Natasha replied. "Let him cool off. He's not trying to hurt you. He thinks he's doing the right thing. And you know how he gets when he thinks he's doing the right thing."

"There's no reasoning with him," Tony said, and the others voiced their agreement. He exhaled a breath and added, "I don't know about you kids, but I'm starving. Takeout from Szechuan Palace?"

Tony made sure to order all of Steve's favorites for when he came back, and he tucked them all into a bag and attached a note reading, _Don't forget to eat_.

Steve hadn't come back by the time Tony crashed and had to be put to bed.

~*~

Something awoke Tony in the middle of the night. He didn't know what, but he didn't question it, either.

He got up, only realizing now that someone had put him to bed (he was certain he'd fallen asleep on the couch), and bleary-eyed, he stumbled out of the bedroom and down the steps to the living area. The lights were off in the lounge, but light shone from the kitchen, and either his damned houseguests were helping themselves to his food again or Steve was home.

Yawning, he padded into the kitchen and saw Steve sitting at the island, the entire order spread out in front of him, takeout boxes and plastic containers, all of which had clearly been dipped into by the fork in Steve's hand. He glanced up as Tony entered, and he looked almost abashed as he said, "Hey," and went back to his food.

"Hey," Tony said and sat adjacent to him.

"Thanks," Steve said after a few silent moments.

"Well, we were ordering. Didn't think it was right not to include you. Where were you?"

He shrugged and twirled some lo mein around his fork. "Out. About."

"You went walking around Brooklyn again, didn't you?"

Steve said nothing, instead preferring to stab a couple pieces of General Tso's Chicken with his fork, and Tony sighed a little.

"Babe, you've got to stop doing that."

"It's not that bad."

"Yeah? I remember one time suffering through a two-hour rant over Ebbets Field and the apartment block that now occupies that spot." He folded his arms on the table top and leaned his weight onto them. "Not to mention the whole Dodgers leaving for California—"

Steve glared at him. "I thought we agreed not to talk about that?"

Tony just grinned, and Steve shook his head and grabbed for an egg roll.

"The middle of the night!" he said after a moment. "The goddamned middle of the night, they just sneak out of town like a bunch of ne'er-do-wells—"

"You can take the boy out of 1940s Brooklyn—"

"—because, what, the city wouldn't pay for a new stadium? What was wrong with the old one? It was fine, last I saw it. Better than those bums deserved."

He grumbled something under his breath and bit halfway into the egg roll, chewing and muttering as he did so. Tony had to bite his lips to keep from smiling too much.

"I'm sure LA will be devastated to know that Captain America has declared their ball team dead to him."

"Yeah, well, certain bigmouth mechanics keep their mouths shut, they won't have to know, now will they?"

Tony just grinned at him. He couldn't help it. "I love when you go all Brooklyn gutter-rat." Steve rolled his eyes, but Tony continued, resting his chin in his palm, "All that righteous indignation over your borough getting the shaft. I don't think people realize just how much of a Brooklyn boy Captain America really is."

Steve considered this for a moment, fork poised to dig into a container of pork fried rice. "My ma wouldn't know what to do with herself."

"How do you mean?"

"Me, hooking up with a fella from the city. And a rich one, too."

"Yeah, well, I'm sure your mother would be more focused on you shacking up with a _fella_ than with a rich Manhattanite."

Steve dug into the pork friend rice, and he ate a few forkfuls before he said, "Sometimes, I think she knew."

"About?"

Steve just raised an eyebrow at him but added, "Mother's intuition, I guess. I think she sensed something about me that maybe I hadn't even admitted to myself at the time."

"Think she would have liked me?"

"In general or as a son-in-law?"

"Both."

Steve exhaled a breath and speared a fried dumpling then dipped it in some sauce. "She wasn't the type to suffer fools gladly, that's for sure. She was tough. She had to be. My dad died in the war, so it was just us. She worked. She was always working. She wasn't impressed by flash. She thought people like that had it too easy. Didn't understand the value of hard work."

"So…what you're saying is she'd hate me?"

"No," he said and shook his head. He shoved half the potsticker in his mouth, and after chewing it partway said, "Tony Stark, the self-described genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist? Yeah, she'd never let him cross into her parlor twice. Tony Stark, the neurotic mechanical engineer that wants to make the world a better place?" He smiled a little and, after swallowing the bite, said, "I can hear her now. _Oh, he's such a nice boy, Stevie. You should bring him over here more often_."

"So, in general she'd like me then?"

"Yeah."

"As a son-in-law?"

Steve made a face. "Well, that's tougher to figure. Ma was always about wanting me to be happy, but Ma was also, you know, old-fashioned—"

Tony snorted a laugh and motioned at him. "Pot? Kettle."

"Yeah, well, more so than me," he said good-naturedly. "We live in an era where two fellas can get married now if they want to. I don't think anyone could ever have conceived of that back when Ma was still alive. I remember one of the last things she said to me was, ' _Find someone that'll treat you right, Stevie._ ' Not 'a girl,' just 'someone.'" He went quiet a moment before he glanced at Tony and said, "I wish she coulda met you."

"Yeah?"

He nodded. "She woulda liked you."

He went back to eating his pork fried rice, and Tony watched him, figuring that was Steve's way of saying, yes, his mother would have approved of him as a son-in-law were she able to understand the concept of two men being able to get married.

Well, in theory. There was the little matter of Tony's different body at the moment.

"I can't lose you," Steve said suddenly, and Tony glanced up and met his gaze, seeing determination staring right back at him. "I know you can be Iron Man, but I just…" He shook his head some. "I can't lose you, and if grounding you is what it takes to make sure it doesn't happen, then that's what I'm going to do. I'm sorry, Tony, but that's just the way I feel."

He hadn't expected Steve to change his mind about that, but he was hoping it wouldn't sit so sourly in his stomach to hear it again.

"Fair enough," he replied, "but let me just explain how _I_ feel. Four months ago, I got turned into a woman. I thought it was a joke. I didn't think it was going to last. I had a lot of sex with my hot, super soldier fiancé and took absolutely _no_ contraceptive precautions because, well, why would I? I figured everything would just go back to normal once I got changed back. And I got changed back for two months before I realized that, yeah, I wasn't just getting older. I actually _didn't_ feel right. And then I find out that I'm pregnant. I'm a man, and I'm pregnant. I have a uterus and a fetus growing inside me. And then the troublemaker that turned me into a woman in the first place comes back, turns me back into a woman, and tells me not only can I not terminate this pregnancy, but I have to carry it to term unless I want to prematurely end my life. Because she claims she's bound the parasite's life with mine. Because she says my fiancé and I are 'soul mates,' and this is what all 'soul mates' want. Because she's insane.

"So, here I am, forced to carry a pregnancy to term, which is…so absolutely frightening you have no idea. _No idea_. I'm not— I spent forty-three years of my life as a man, OK? This doesn't— And I'm not saying— I'm saying that I'm absolutely horrified that I'm being forced to endure something that was not of my choosing and might very well kill me before everything is said and done.

"I don't blame you. I'm sorry I said that. I didn't mean it. I was just…pissed at you. I know it almost makes it sound like you raped me or something, but that's not… You never did anything to me that I didn't want. This isn't your fault. It's that witch's fault. It's both our faults for being idiots and thinking we're above silly things like basic human biology — which, I guess in your case, is a fair argument. I just… Saying that I can't be Iron Man anymore? Grounding me? It's just one more thing that makes me realize I have no control over my own life now, and I don't deal well with not being in control — not of myself, at least. I get that you're scared, and I get that you're afraid you'll be too concerned with my whereabouts to concentrate on what you need to do, but from my angle, it's…"

He closed his mouth and swallowed, his throat choked with emotion, and Steve had set the fork down and was resting his arms on the table, gazing thoughtfully at him. He reached up and brushed away some of those stupid tears that had collected on his eyelashes, and Steve reached out and brushed a few dark tendrils of hair away from his face.

"The others were saying," he said, unsure of whether or not this was something he should even broach, "that you're having a hard time not seeing me as I am. That on some level you can't not see me as a woman that's carrying your child."

Steve closed his eyes and dropped his hand, pulling into himself. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I'm sorry. I'm trying. I'm really trying. It's just…" He opened his eyes but wouldn't look at Tony. "I can't help it. I see you, like that, and I know that you're… And I know that it's mine, and I just… I can't help it." He turned to him, pleading etched over his face. "I'm trying, Tony. I know you're not... I understand that. I just… Part of me won't accept that. Part of me sees that and—"

"Wants it?"

He grimaced, looking embarrassed and humbled. "Yeah. But that doesn't mean I don't want you — the real you — too. I just…" He reached up and scratched his head. "I know I have no leg to stand on here, not compared to you, but I'm just so goddamned confused by this whole thing."

Tony snorted a laugh. "You think _you're_ confused."

"I know. I know I don't exactly have room to talk or anything—"

"No, hey!" Tony said and reached out to put a hand on Steve's arm. "It's not— I'm not saying you can't be confused. I'm just saying… Look, the most mind-blowing orgasm I ever had was in a body that I'm still not sure I consider my own. I don't know. It's…it's weird, all right? I— Look, cards on the table — and this doesn't go past this room — there are parts of me that are enjoying the whole experience of being a woman. Not just dressing as a woman but physically _being_ a woman — and a pregnant woman at that. I actually… I've even gotten to wondering if there's ways of me being able to go back and forth when this is all said and done because while there's a _lot_ of stuff I miss about being a guy, yeah, there's going to be some stuff I miss about being a woman. And _that_ …" He whistled. "Yeah, try reconciling _that_ in your head."

Steve made a face of contemplation, and Tony said, "You're thinking about it, aren't you? Wondering what it's like."

"Kinda," he said with a squeamish smile. "Yeah."

"Well, don't say it too loudly or she'll be back to wreak havoc on our lives once again. I think one of us getting ourselves in trouble is more than enough."

"You're not in trouble, Tony."

Tony faked a gasp. "Steven! I am pregnant and unmarried! Of _course_ I'm in trouble!"

He shrugged and picked his fork back up. "We can always attempt to do something about the marriage-thing."

Tony stared at him for all of a second before he ran off to grab his tablet, Steve muttering, "The hell?" as he ran past him. He found where he'd left it on the table, snatched it up, and was already loading up the requisite web page by the time he walked back into the kitchen.

"OK, what do we have here?" he mused and scrolled down the marriage bureau page of the city clerk's office before he sat down at the island again. "Uh…thirty-five bucks. I guess I can afford that. Oh! We can fill it out online!" He glanced up at Steve. "Well, that should get us around that whole, uh—"

"You not looking like Tony Stark?"

He scoffed. "I _look_ like Tony Stark, OK? I look like what would happen if Tony Stark was born a woman, but I look like Tony Stark." He glanced back down again and frowned. "Shit."

"What?"

"We still have to go in front of the clerk, _and_ we have to provide valid ID, _and_ proxy marriages aren't allowed in New York." He glanced up again. "Great, so the kid's going to be born a bastard."

"I thought people didn't care about that sort of stuff nowadays?" Steve asked through a mouthful of fried rice.

"It's the principle of the thing."

Steve shrugged. "Well, you could always go down there and try to convince the clerk you're really Tony Stark. _Or_ I could marry Natasha Carbonell."

"Fuck that," he muttered. "You're marrying Tony Stark or you're not getting married at all." He scrolled down the page some more and read it over. Neither one of them had been married before, so that section didn't pertain to them, but then he got to the name change section and said, "Uh… what about names?"

"What about them?"

He glanced up at Steve again. "What are we doing about that? Keeping our own? Hyphenating? Some god-awful combination? Stogers? Roark?" He shuddered. "God, those both sound horrible. How 'bout Stark-Rogers?"

"Yeah?" Steve asked and raised an eyebrow in challenge. "What about Rogers-Stark?"

"What about it?"

"It's alphabetical that way."

"Yeah, but Stark-Rogers _sounds_ better. It flows off the tongue better: Anthony and Steven Stark- Rogers. Even 'Steven Stark-Rogers' sounds better than 'Steven Rogers-Stark.'"

"I don't usually go by 'Steven.'"

"Stop being difficult, _Steven_ , and just admit that my way sounds better and even forms better with the mouth. It's the 'S' at the end of your name and the beginning of mine. That's what fucks it up for you. It just sounds better for it to be 'Stark-Rogers.'"

Steve sighed, and, fork stuck in the container of lo mein, he dropped his head some and said, "I'm not going to win this one, am I?"

Tony shrugged and glanced over the web page once more. "Well, I am the one carrying your child."

He felt Steve's gaze on him, and he glanced over and met his eyes, and Steve smiled some and said, "OK. We'll be the Stark-Rogers…es. OK, now the plural sounds absolutely _terrible_. 'Rogers-Starks' sounds better than that other way."

Tony shrugged. "Tough. You agreed, and no one's ever going to refer to us that way _anyway_. We'll always be just Tony and Steve."

"Or _Natasha_ and Steve."

Tony clicked the button to begin the online application. "Yeah, keep it up there, chuckles. You may be marrying Natasha Carbonell just yet."


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a story about a man that gets turned into a woman and gets pregnant by another man that was frozen in ice for 70 years. And yet, this chapter is what causes me anguish because it's just too outlandish for me. No way would the city clerk's office allow this to happen.

* * *

"Are you kidding me?"

The deputy clerk just raised an eyebrow as she glanced between Steve and Tony later the next afternoon.

"You," she said and pointed to Steve, "I believe could be Captain America. _You_ —" she pointed to Tony, "on the other hand, aren't even the right sex for Tony Stark."

"If I was more of an ass than I am, I would purposely mishear that as, 'Sex for Tony Stark?' and the answer would be, 'Yes, please.'

Steve shot him a _look_ while the clerk just smacked her chewing gum, and wasn't that completely unprofessional? Chewing gum and working the city marriage license bureau?

She leaned closer, folding her arms on her desk. "Let me get this straight. Tony Stark hasn't been seen in months. Few days ago, Captain America shows up on a date with a mysterious brunette. Now, today, Captain America and this mysterious brunette—" she narrowed her eyes at Tony as though inspecting him, "—yeah, you look like the same woman—"

Tony frowned at her. "They got pictures?" He turned to Steve. "They got pictures of me?"

But Steve just shrugged, and the woman continued, "— are sitting at my desk and trying to convince me that this 'mystery woman' is Tony Stark?"

Tony nodded. "That's the long and short of it. Now, if you could just process our form, we'll be out of your hair—"

"This is a pointless question," she said, and she couldn't have sounded any more annoyed with them if she'd tried, "but does either one of you have ID?"

Steve pulled out his wallet and produced his driver's license while Tony pulled out the bag he'd taken to carrying around and pulled out his wallet — _his_ wallet, the one he'd been using even before this whole thing had started — and yanked out a bunch of cards.

As she took hold of Steve's license and began to inspect it, Tony slapped his own forms of ID in front of her.

"My passport issued by the United States of America, driver's license from the State of New York, Social Security card, _three_ credit cards — including an Iron Man red and gold American Express with absolutely no limit that they made special for me — my Blue Cross insurance card, and last but not least," he slapped the last one down, "my Avengers' ID card."

She eyed Tony as she set Steve's license down to the side of her then began to look over his cards and passport. Only the passport, the license, and the Avengers' card had photos on them, all three photos of a serious-looking Tony Stark that did not quite resemble the woman that was sitting in front of the clerk. She took all the IDs and began to inspect them, glancing between the photos and the Tony sitting in front of her as she did so.

"Well," she said after a moment, "these certainly look like valid IDs, but they don't look like you."

"Look harder."

" _Tony_ ," Steve murmured as a warning.

She held up the photo IDs. "These are all photos of Tony Stark." She set them back down again. " _You_ are not Tony Stark."

"Are you sure about that?"

"I'm positive."

"Yeah? Well, I demand to speak to your supervisor."

" _Tony!_ "

"Steve, no, this is bullshit. These are all perfectly valid forms of ID. They're _my_ IDs, and I'm not going anywhere until my fiancé and I are issued a marriage license if I have to form a sit-in to do it!"

He sat back in the chair and folded his arms, and Steve literally face-palmed into his hand before he rubbed his hand down his face and looked up at the clerk.

"Is there anything we can do about this?"

"Sure," she said and nodded in Tony's direction. "File under her real name."

Tony rolled his eyes. "That _is_ my real name. Haven't you been listening?"

She considered the IDs again, looked at Tony, looked back at the IDs, then looked at Tony one more time.

"You get a sex-change operation?"

Steve just shook his head and muttered something under his breath, and Tony glared and said, "I'm sorry, _what?_ "

"It would explain Tony Stark's disappearance, for one. It would also explain how you happen to have all of his information. What it doesn't explain is why you wouldn't have had _new_ IDs issued for your…new identity."

"Because this isn't my 'new identity.' This is… Look, it's hard to explain. It's impossible to explain. I wouldn't even know where to begin. Just— I am who I say I am, so just finish filling out the forms, sign whatever you have to, give us our license, and we'll be out of your hair. Trust me, Tony Stark is _not_ going to be marching in here and claiming you issued a license in his name under false pretenses. You want to know why? Because _I'm_ Tony Stark. Now, give me my license."

He made a grabby-hand at her, but she didn't move a muscle. He sighed.

"If I have to call Ms. Potts, the CEO of Stark Industries," he said, mustering as much stern authority to imbue the words with dark warning as he could, "to verify my claim, you are going to be _so_ sorry."

She smacked her chewing gum again but still didn't budge, and Steve said, "Look, it sounds...crazy, but he _is_ Tony Stark. There's a reason that he's like this that I can't get into, but do you honestly think Captain America is sitting here trying to con you into issuing a marriage license under false pretenses?"

Ooh…he'd played the Cap card.

"I don't know," the woman said. "Is he?" She leaned back in her chair. "I read about Captain America in high school. It was a big part of his story that he went from draft board to draft board trying to enlist, _often_ under false pretenses. That's not the way they present it, of course, but yes, given that Captain America tried to con the draft board in World War II, I could completely believe that he's sitting here now trying to con me into a marriage license."

Steve was stuck for anything to say, his own somewhat sordid history being thrown back in his face, and Tony couldn't help but mutter at him, "Nice going, Steve."

Steve didn't even acknowledge him. He just tried another route, a more placating tone in his voice as he said, "Can we talk to your supervisor?"

The clerk smiled a little, and she picked up her phone and pressed a button for an extension, and after a few moments of hushed discussion said, "Oh, no, this one you've got to see to believe." She shot a look over at the pair at that, and they exchanged looks of equal parts confusion and insult before they turned their attentions back to her.

"He'll be right out," she said as she hung up the receiver, and Steve nodded and sat quietly, his arms folded, while Tony drummed his fingers on the desk and waited for the head clerk or main clerk or whatever the lead clerk was called to make his appearance, vowing to leave a very honest two-star review on Yelp when this was all said and done.

Oh, who was he kidding? He'd never remember to do that.

"You know," he finally muttered when they'd been sitting there for too long, "if we'd just done this the moment we got engaged, we could have saved ourselves a shitload of trouble."

Steve, still sitting with arms folded, scuffed a booted foot against the floor and glanced over to him. "Thought it was because the license was only good for sixty days, and you said it would take longer than sixty days to plan the wedding bash you'd always dreamed of."

"Yeah, well, clearly I didn't foresee something like this happening," he said and motioned over himself.

"You know we're not going to get to have a big party, right?"

He shrugged. "Whatever. We'll have one once everything goes back to normal."

Steve nodded but said nothing, and the clerk finally made his appearance from a back room and stood beside the deputy that was refusing to grant their marriage license. She motioned to Steve and said, "Steve Rogers," then nodded at Tony and added, "Tony Stark."

The clerk eyed them both then pointed at Steve and said, " _He_ could pass for Steve Rogers." He then pointed at Tony. " _She's_ not even the right gender for Tony Stark."

Tony went to protest his use of qualifiers, but Steve cut in before he could and said, "Look, sir, I know how this probably looks, but considering there was an alien wormhole over midtown two years ago, is this really so out of the ordinary?"

The clerk looked at his deputy, and she motioned to the IDs still sitting on the desk and said, "The information all matches what's on the application. The only problem is that the photos on _Mr. Stark's_ IDs don't match, well…"

Tony sat forward a little, resting an arm on the desktop. "Wait, so if I'd had all of the same information but just had a different picture on my IDs, all of this could be avoided? You'd give us a marriage license even with the name 'Anthony Stark' on it."

"So long as you were attesting to the fact that you are, in fact, Anthony Stark," the main clerk said.

"But I _am_ attesting to it!" he yelled, and Steve reached out and put a hand on his arm to calm him. "Look, do you want to know what's really going on?"

"Tony, _don't_."

"About four months ago—"

"Tony, we're in _public!_ "

"—some screwball cosmonaut shows up in the middle of a battle already in progress down in the Financial District. You remember that, don't you?"

Both clerks nodded and made utterances to their understanding, and Steve glanced around and said, " _Maybe_ , before you go any further, we should move this to a more private location?"

"What, why?" Tony snapped, not in the mood for Steve's fucking rationality at the moment, and it wasn't until Steve rolled his eyes that Tony remembered they had an audience—

An audience that was at rather apt attention, now that he looked behind him at the row of seats filled to the brim with to-be-marrieds.

"Fine," he said with a huffy sigh and looked at the clerk. "Got a room we can talk this out in?" He waved them around a corridor after he'd picked up the IDs that were still sitting on the desk.

"Follow me," he said, and Tony and Steve left their seats and followed the clerk back to what they took to be his office. It was cluttered, and there wasn't much room to sit, but they moved aside and let him close the door anyway, and he went over to his desk and sat down at his computer and pulled up their application.

"So…Steven Grant Rogers, born 1918 in Brooklyn, and Anthony Edward Stark, born 1970 in New York." He shot them both a look and shook his head a little before he scanned over the document. "Joseph and Sarah, Howard and Maria, neither one of you was married before, would like your legal name to be 'Stark-Rogers.'"

He noted that they were both still standing, and he nodded for them to take the chairs in front of his desk. They shrugged and sat, and he leaned back in his chair and looked at them.

"So," he said, "what's the story here? Because from everything I've seen, you, ma'am, are not Tony Stark."

" _Ma'am?_ How old do you think I am?"

"Tony," Steve said with a sigh. "Focus."

"Right." He sat up. "Look, it's like I was saying. There was that incident in the Financial District that the Avengers were tied up with several months ago."

"I recall it," the clerk said. "I don't recall there ever being an explanation for it."

"It's not something we felt the public needed to be made aware of," Steve said. "We contained the threat and remedied the situation with minimal damage to the perimeter."

"You sounded _just_ like Captain America there," Tony said, and Steve shot him another _look_ while the clerk said, his tone verging on astonished, "Minimal damage? Well, if I had access to Tony Stark's billions, I guess I'd consider that 'minimal damage,' too."

Steve exhaled a breath that Tony knew was shaping up to be the onset of a lecture, and before Steve could even get a word out, Tony leaned closer to the desk and said, "Yeah, _anyway_ , in the middle of this fight, some crazy magic cosmonaut shows up. Thor and I were supposed to contain her. I thought Thor had her. He didn't. I stepped out of my suit to check on something, she saw me, decided to have a little fun, and next thing I know—" He motioned over himself. "I look like this."

"She turned you into a woman?"

"Yeah."

"Then why was Tony Stark seen after that? He was seen up until about two months ago."

Tony made a sour face. "Oh, right. Because the original spell only lasted a week and I was back to my old self, but then she showed up again a couple months ago and decided it would be much more fun to extend its life. Why? Because she's crazy. So, now, here I am back to being a woman."

The clerk nodded, and he reached out and began to toy with a pen on his desk, almost like it was helping him to think, before he said, "So, why not wait until this _spell_ is over and done with?"

He turned his attention back to them, and they exchanged looks before Steve said, "There…might be some extenuating circumstances."

"Such as?" the clerk asked.

Steve looked at Tony, and Tony cringed and said, "Yeah, I, uh, might be preg— ugh, _pregnant_ ," he said, stumbling over the word.

The clerk dropped his pen.

"Look, not that I think in this day and age you absolutely need to get married before your kid's born, but maybe there's more of my mother's traditions ingrained in me than I want to admit, and before anything else fucking screwy happens to us, because, seriously, we're Avengers. It's in the job description. But before anything else screwy happens, I just want a document that says Steve and I are married, everything's legal, I can put him in my will as my husband, and our kid won't be born a bastard."

The clerk just sat there, staring, and Tony heard the quiet tick of a clock from somewhere in the vicinity. He started to count out the seconds, and he got up to twenty-six before the clerk spoke again.

"So…just so I understand," he said, slowly, like he was trying very, very hard to process what he'd just heard, "Captain America got Iron Man _pregnant_ because Iron Man got turned into a _woman_ , and now you want me to issue you a marriage license because _Iron Man_ —" he looked specifically at Tony at that, "—is more traditional than anyone might have guessed."

Steve and Tony exchanged looks once again before Tony nodded and said, "That's about the long and short of it."

"And you're attesting to the fact that you are the Anthony Edward Stark named on this application?"

"Totally and completely," he said with a nod. "I mean, if you need to verify it, I can call in the rest of the Avengers, or Ms. Potts, the CEO of Stark Industries, or Colonel James Rhodes of the United States Air Force—"

The clerk put his hands up like he thought Tony was going to continue to name names, but honestly, Tony had hit the end of his list. No one else knew about his…predicament — no one that could be of any use to them, anyway.

The clerk was silent a moment, hands steepled and mouth resting against his fingertips, before he said, "I honestly can't think of any other way of proving that you're really Tony Stark. I suppose I could make you submit an affidavit signed by two people that have known you at least ten years attesting to the fact that you _are_ indeed Tony Stark—"

"Eh, can you make it two years?" Tony suggested. "That pool's a little larger to choose from. I mean, ten years, we're looking at my best buddy, who would totally do it, and my ex-girlfriend, who is a very important and busy CEO that's also on the other side of the country."

"It might suffice," the clerk said with a small shrug.

"Yeah, but I really feel like I'm being discriminated against and being forced to jump through more hoops than, well, _him_ —" he jerked a thumb at Steve, "—just to get a marriage license."

The clerk raised an eyebrow at him. "His photo ID matches."

"Yeah, well, mine matches, too. I mean, it matches what I looked like four months ago—"

"Exactly. It doesn't match what you look like now."

"Because this is only a temporary thing," he said and motioned over himself. "Crazy space goddess was playing with her Steve and Tony dolls and suddenly decided, 'Hey, what if Tony was a _girl?_ ' It's not permanent. It's just until…"

The clerk stared at him.

"…certain things happen," he said, glancing away. OK, he may have already admitted to the guy that he was knocked up, but no way in hell was he going to tell him that he had to carry this thing to term under pain of death.

"Fingerprints," Steve suggested suddenly, like he hadn't been listening to the past few minutes of conversation.

"Fingerprints? What? No, no fingerprints!" Tony said. "And you don't even know that they would match! Very little of me matches what came before."

"Your moles do," Steve said and glanced over to him pointedly. _Of course_ Steve would notice that, and Tony knew which moles in particular Steve, the pervert, was thinking of.

"Yeah, well, I'm not even sure there's any photographic evidence of the 'before'—"

Steve flattened his mouth and raised an eyebrow.

"— _to compare them to_ ," he finished, clipped. "I'm sorry, are you trying to imply something, sweetheart? And how would we even prove that, huh? Some private investigator swears an oath to it? You want some investigator poring over pictures of me _like that?_ Huh? Is that what you want, Steven?"

"Just saying," he said with a shrug. "It would be a way to prove it."

"Yeah, well, _just saying_ , that's not gonna happen."

"I was just making a suggestion."

"That, conveniently, only affects me and not you — like _a lot_ of things going on in my life at this moment."

Steve let out a resigned breath. " _Tony_ , you know I—"

Tony waved him off. "Yeah, yeah, I know. You've said it a thousand times. It starts to lose all meaning after a while, though, I want you to know that."

Steve frowned at him, a little sad-eyed, and went to say something, but Tony put his hand up as though to say he didn't want to hear it or he didn't care or some combination of the two, and Steve clamped his mouth shut again.

The clerk took in the exchange and remained quiet a moment before he said, "I remember that day, a couple years ago, when that alien wormhole opened up and those alien creatures were destroying Midtown. Nothing's been the same since that day. So many crazy things out in the world anymore. Guess I can't really be surprised that something like _that_ could happen."

He looked at his computer, and he was silent a moment before he added, "I can get into a lot of trouble for this, but—" He reached out and turned the monitor toward them so they could see it. "Is all the information as shown correct?"

"Wait," Tony said, "you're going to do it? You're going to give us a marriage license?"

He gave a curt nod and added, "Come by here at 3:45 tomorrow and I'll perform the ceremony myself."

"What, why? Why tomorrow? Why not today?"

"Have to wait twenty-four hours unless you receive a Judicial Waiver."

Tony turned to Steve, but Steve just raised an eyebrow and said, "We can wait a day."

"Yeah, but—"

"My info's correct. Is yours?"

Tony looked over the monitor. "Yeah, print it. Sign it. Let's get this party started."

So, Steven Grant Rogers would get to marry Anthony Edward Stark after all.

~*~

Because the gold engagement band Tony had planned on using as a wedding band didn't fit his finger any longer, Steve jokingly offered to buy Tony another wedding ring. Tony, to both their surprises, took him up on the offer and then proceeded to pick out a stunning diamond-and- sapphire studded band set in platinum from Tiffany's. It was half-because, when he let his gaze go fuzzy, the colors blended together and looked a little arc reactor bluish.

The other half was because it was a fucking gorgeous ring, and he wanted it, damn it!

Steve had just shrugged and said, "Whatever baby wants, baby gets," as he handed over a credit card with a false name on it.

To be honest, Tony could really get used to that kind of thinking.

~*~

"OK, one and all. Gather 'round. The Captain and I have an important announcement to make," Tony said as they walked into the penthouse late that afternoon. "Also, what the hell? Are we on _Friends_? Stop hanging out in my apartment! I put in a common floor for you people!"

"Hell of a way to treat your family, Stark," Barton said, shoveling cereal in his mouth as he sat perched on the back of the couch. "You know if we never spent any time here, you'd whine to Cap and JARVIS that nobody liked you and nobody wanted to play with you."

The others all murmured their agreement as they sat staring at the TV, and Tony rolled his eyes while Steve went over and switched the set off, engendering groans from the Avengers, Wilson, and Rhodey, who was still in town.

"Oh, my god. Is five minutes going to kill you? Fucking have JARVIS DVR it or something."

" _It was actually a program I had previously DVRed for the team as requested by Agent Romanoff_ ," JARVIS intoned, and Tony rolled his eyes and glanced over to Natasha, who just raised an eyebrow at him and said, " _Wedding Warriors_ season finale."

"You people have abysmal taste in television viewing, but glad you mentioned 'wedding,'" Tony said and grabbed Steve's hand to pull him beside him. "Clear your schedules for tomorrow, guys and dolls. Steve and I are getting married."

The reaction of the room appeared to be somewhere between 'What?' and 'About time,' and Tony shushed them and said, "Look, we convinced the clerk to give us a license, but we have to wait a fucking day to use it, but he said he'll marry us personally if we get our asses there by 3:45 tomorrow, so—" He pointed to all of them. "No fucking around. I am getting married tomorrow come hell or high water. End of story." He then produced a small blue Tiffany's bag. "I have a ring and everything that Steve practically embarrassed the shit out of me to get because he thinks 'douchebag hipster' is an appealing shade on him."

"It worked, didn't it?" Steve offered as a defense. "They didn't catch on to who we were or what we were doing. And, speaking of which—" Steve reached out and took the small blue bag from him over his protests. "I'll take care of that from here on out."

He whined a little and said, "Come on, Steve! At least let me wear it for a little while. It's the least you owe me after that douche-bro shit you pulled."

"Nope," Steve said with a shake of his head. "Not until tomorrow."

Tony whined some more and rolled his eyes, but Natasha looked over at the rest of the gang collected on the couches and chairs, and Tony startled a little at the strange sort of silent agreement that seemed to come over them. He turned to Steve to see if he had noticed, but Steve was eyeing the group with squinted gaze and pursed lips and tensed jaw, like he knew they were up to something and he didn't trust it.

"You're getting married tomorrow?" Natasha asked, a leading tone in her voice.

"Yeah."

"Rings and flowers and the whole shebang?" Wilson asked.

He and Steve exchanged glances, and Tony shrugged and said, "I guess so. I mean I do have a ring." He reached for the bag, but Steve pulled it further from his grasp.

"Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue?" Bruce asked.

"What, are we in a fairytale?" Tony said.

"'I, Anthony, take you, Steven, to be my lawfully-wedded husband'?" Rhodey said.

"Uh, that's generally how it goes, isn't it?"

"Ah, yes, the Midgardian tradition of entwining the marital bonds. I've heard fascinating things about it, and I've long been looking forward to attending one of these magnificent ceremonies," Thor said and looked pleased-as-punch at the very thought of it.

"Yeah, probably nothing compared to Asgard's pomp and circumstance, and sorry, pal, I don't think that's what they're going for," Barton said. "Especially considering Stark's, uh, _condition_ , I think we're looking more at the shotgun variety of ceremony." He glanced to Tony and said, "Nice to see the Cap making an honest man out of you, though."

"Excuse me?" Steve asked, lips pursed and eyebrow raised.

But the collection of devious friends and comrades sitting there in the living room just exchanged little smiles with each other before Natasha said, "Nothing. Don't worry about it. We're just trying to imagine you two being all traditional and conventional."

"Uh," Tony said and blinked at Steve before he turned back to Natasha, "I think that's the whole point of this? We _are_ being traditional and conventional. Wedding. Tomorrow. Downtown.

Clerk's office. Be there or be square."

"Nobody says that anymore, man," Barton said and shoveled another spoonful of cereal into his mouth, but Rhodey, who'd stayed quiet the last few moments, got up from his chair and stood in front of the couple.

"Hey, are you really doing this?" he asked.

Tony frowned at him. "Sorry, boo-bear. I know we had our little 'if neither one of us is married by the time we're fifty' pact—"

"We never had one of those pacts," Rhodey said with a shake of his head.

"—but Steve's willing to make an honest man out of me—"

" _That's_ the only reason you're marrying me?" Steve mused with a quirked smile.

"—and I figure I better take him up on it before he realizes the mistake that he's made."

Rhodey's eyes went a little concerned at that, his head tilted like he couldn't believe Tony had just said what he'd said, and Steve grabbed hold of his hand and gave his arm a slight tug to get Tony to turn his attention to him.

"Hey," he said, soft and tender and all _Steve_ with that gentle demeanor, "why would you think that? It's not about making an honest… _man_ …out of you. It's about finally getting you to do what I wish we'd done six months ago. I'm not getting any younger, either, you know."

"I know," he muttered, eyes suddenly a little watery and voice a little choked. Fucking hormones. "Old habits."

Steve nodded and put his finger beneath Tony's chin to tilt his head up toward him. He brought his mouth down and met Tony's lips with his own, all warm and tender and gentle and caring, and in the periphery, he heard Barton say, "Well, if there's one good thing about them getting married it's that marriage usually kills the romance, so at least they'll stop making us suffer through this shit."

Steve broke the kiss just as Bruce and Natasha hummed their agreement. He brushed the tip of his nose against Tony's, and Rhodey said, "Yeah, I wouldn't put money on that if I were you."

Honestly, he wouldn't, either.

There was a funny charge of something in the air after that. Something was up, and Tony knew something was up, even if Bruce denied it and Wilson shrugged and said, "No idea, man," and Rhodey shook his head and said he didn't know what he was talking about. Thor just looked puzzled and looked up at the ceiling when Tony made the mistake of literally asking him, "What's up?" He was certain Thor was being deliberately obtuse at that, though he was tempted to tell the guy that 'gullible' was written on the ceiling and see what came of that.

Natasha simply rolled her eyes and accused him of being paranoid when he tried to get her to level with him later that afternoon, and Barton just snorted a laugh and agreed with Natasha's assessment when he finally sank to the level of trying to ask the birdbrain about it.

But something was _definitely_ up because even Hill showed up that afternoon and with a punchbowl and the ingredients for a brew of some kind. Hill ventured into the penthouse every so often, but it was for business only and never for pleasure.

But here they all were, and Bruce and Natasha and Clint were in the kitchen cooking up some sort of feast, and when Steve surmised what they were up to — a sort of 'rehearsal dinner' for the happy couple — he said, "You really don't have to do this for us," but Clint just said, "Hey, you only get married for the first time once," as he tore up lettuce for a salad.

Well, if that wasn't a ringing endorsement for both his and Steve's relationship _and_ the institution of marriage, he didn't know what was. And since when the hell was Barton of any use in a kitchen?

Wilson and Thor made themselves useful by bringing up the formal dining table from the communal floor and setting it up near to the plate glass floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the vista of southern Manhattan and vicinity, setting up the chairs and then arguing over the proper etiquette for place settings because American customs for how to set a table didn't quite mesh with Asgardian customs. Rhodey just stood by and watched, drink of some kind in hand, then said it wasn't his deal and wiped his hands of the whole exchange when they turned to him to settle the dispute. Hill went about mixing up a punch in the large bowl she'd brought — non- alcoholic, of course, she assured Tony and Steve when Steve eyed her concoction a little too warily — and when the food was cooked and the table was set (according to a mix of customs) and the punch was ready, they all sat down to a large and raucous family-style dinner replete with humorous toasts and embarrassing stories.

Rhodey, of course, was there to tell tales of Tony's stupid college endeavors (somehow forgetting to mention that _he_ was as much a part of some of the stupider pranks they'd pulled as Tony was), but no one was there to really embarrass Steve, so Bruce went online and found a biography published in the '60s of the great war hero Captain America. It included quotes from the Commandos and Peggy Carter and even fucking Howard, but that's not what Bruce focused on. No, Bruce read aloud passages that sounded like they were straight out of a tacky bodice-ripper, the ones that went on about Steve's 'rippling muscles' and 'azure eyes' and the 'firm grip' and 'masterful control' he had over the shield, which was like an extension of his 'exquisite physique.' Steve sank down into his chair, hand covering his face as he practically went beet-red and begged Bruce to stop reading, but the gales of laughter from the group was enough to keep him going until Barton said, "Wait, wasn't this considered the definitive Captain America biography until it turned out the old codger was still alive?"

"Yeah," Bruce replied and scrolled to another page.

"Why does it sound like something Stark would have written for a ninth-grade history project— And yes, I know you were, like, seven in ninth grade. I meant ninth grade for normal people."

"I wasn't _seven_ ," he grumbled but left it at that.

"It is pretty bad when you think about it," Bruce said, though Wilson just said, "Yes, I _would_ like to buy it right now," as he swiped his fingers over his phone.

"Really?" Steve asked him, flat and a little disappointed and still red with embarrassment, the tips of his ears gone adorably pink with mortification.

But Wilson just grinned as his purchase evidently completed, and he glanced up at Steve and said, "Yeah, I get to learn all these really neat things about you."

"'Neat' is old-man for 'cool' or 'awesome,'" Tony explained to the others.

Steve shot Tony a _look_ before he turned his attention back to Wilson. "You could just _ask_ me."

Wilson just held up his phone some. "But this is the _definitive_ Cap bio. I never got around to reading it 'cause I had, you know, a _life_ , but it turns out, I didn't know what I was missing."

Poor Steve still didn't seem to understand Wilson's need to read an outdated bio littered with purple prose.

"I could tell you anything you wanted to know."

Wilson hummed and read something on his phone. "With your 'smile as warm as a summer sun'?"

"It does not say that!"

He stood up from his seat and reached over the table to grab the phone away from Wilson, who gave it up freely and easily for him. Steve sat back with a huff and looked over whatever Wilson had up on his screen. Evidently, he hadn't been lying (and Tony already knew he hadn't been lying because he'd read that bio cover-to-cover several times over back in his younger days) because Steve just frowned and said, "I really don't think it's necessary to say that my eyes crinkle a little at the corners when I smile."

"No, you don't understand," Rhodey said. "That guy was a _huge_ Cap fan. He, like, worshipped the ground you walked on. Tones pretty much broke the spine of his copy of that book, he read it so many times."

Steve turned to him, and Tony turned to glare at Rhodey and said, "Thanks, man. Way to have my back."

"Hey, did I say you were jerking off to it?" He shot a pointed look at Steve and said, "That was the poster on his wall."

"Yeah, OK, you're not my best man anymore. Birdbrain, you're up."

"Really?" Barton asked, almost like he was genuinely surprised by the promotion, and Bruce said a slightly hurt, "Hey," at the exact same time. Rhodey just rolled his eyes and sipped at the non- alcoholic punch, secure in the fact that Tony was full of shit and would never replace him.

He didn't think so, anyway.

He turned to Steve to see how he was taking his news — the 'jerking off' thing, not the 'best man' thing. Steve just sat there, still a little pink in the face, with his elbows resting on the arms of the chair, his hands folded over his abdomen, and a somewhat bemused and self-deprecating twist to his lips.

"This Cap sounds like a pretty swell fella. Not so sure about this 'Steve Rogers.'"

"Don't even start," Tony said and reached out to slap a hand over Steve's mouth. "Look, I already told you about my… _youthful infatuation_ with Captain America. But that was the muscly guy on the poster that was like the second coming and this perfect and noble and just and heroic, larger- than-life superman of righteousness."

Hand still slapped over his mouth, Steve cocked an eyebrow at him.

He groaned a little and rolled his eyes. "What I'm saying is I was infatuated with an image, not the man behind the image. I didn't _know_ the man behind the image, all right? Actually, at that time, the man behind the image was sort of, kind of _dead_ —"

"You fantasized about doing it with a dead guy?" Barton said.

Steve directed some of his annoyance in Barton's direction, and Tony used the hand he had over Steve's mouth to turn his head back in his direction.

"Birdbrain, you're demoted. Sugar bunny, you're back to being my best man—"

"Aw, man," Barton whined.

"—and _you_ ," Tony said to Steve. "I'm ninety-nine percent sure I know what's going on in that defrosted brain of yours, and, no, I'm not marrying 'Captain America.' Yeah, he's awesome, but he's not really… I'm marrying Steve Rogers, end of story. I want to marry Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers is as awesome as Captain America but without all that annoying baggage."

"Wait—" Wilson said and sat up some, "— _Steve's_ the one without the baggage?"

"Yeah."

"How?" Bruce asked, face pinched in confusion. He looked to Steve and said a sincere, "No offense," then turned his attention back to Tony and said, "But _how?_ I would think it would be the other way around."

Steve quirked his eyebrow like he very much wanted to hear Tony's explanation, and Tony sighed a little and sat away from Steve, dropping his hand as he did so.

"It's… I don't know, it's hard to explain. Wait, no, it's not. Cap's perfect and Steve isn't. Captain America is this righteous, virtuous Sentinel of Liberty that you kind of try to force yourself to be as good as. Steve Rogers is a horny-but-lazy old man."

Barton dropped his fork on his plate. "And, I'm done."

"I'm sorry. Did I give details? I can give details, if you want. You know what Steve's really good at? When he takes his finger and—"

Steve reached over and clamped his hand over Tony's mouth. "And that's enough of that."

Tony just grinned and kissed the palm of Steve's hand.

Dinner settled after that, with the assorted group breaking into smaller conversations — Wilson telling Natasha about his recent counseling work, Barton, weirdly, discussing the cultivation of plants with Bruce, Rhodey and Thor and Hill getting into a debate over…Asgardian versus Earth politics? Whatever.

Tony pushed the food around on his plate a moment before he felt a hand take his, and he glanced over to see Steve eyeing him then giving a nod in the opposite direction away from the table.

Tony nodded his understanding then tossed his napkin onto the table and got up, letting Steve keep hold of his hand as he led them away from the table and over to a bank of windows that looked out to the western side of the island as well as Jersey and beyond. The lights of the expanse shone before them, the sun having set some time ago, and Steve took Tony's other hand in his grasp and said, "They're plotting something. I don't know what it is, but they're plotting something."

Tony shrugged and swung Steve's arms a little. "I know. I don't think it's bad, whatever it is."

"Yeah, but, whatever it is—" He let go of Tony's hands to reach up and cup Tony's face, and he brought his mouth down to Tony's in a sweet, tender, and slightly heated kiss, running the tip of his tongue over the length of Tony's bottom lip to get him to part his mouth and offer entrance.

Tony melted into him at that, sliding his arms around Steve's narrow waist as he fell into the embrace, Steve's tongue in his mouth and his growing interest in the situation pressing into his hip. He moaned a little, suddenly desperate once again to have this man inside of him — he wasn't sure that feeling would ever go away for him — and he broke the kiss and said a soft but choked, " _Steve_ ," against his mouth, and that seemed to be all the reassurance that Steve needed.

Steve dropped his hands away from Tony's face then scooped him up into a bridal carry. Tony went with it, putting his arms around Steve's neck and saying a quiet, " _Shh!_ " to him as they crossed back through the broad expanse of the floor to make their way to the elevator that would take them to another floor that Tony would then put on lockdown until their friends got out of their system whatever it was they were plotting.

Or until they finished fucking each other silly. Whichever eventuality came first.

Unfortunately, Steve wasn't watching precisely where he was going — his blood-flow being concentrated in other areas at the moment — and he kicked the ottoman, yelling out an undignified, " _Fuck!_ " as he stumbled and lost his balance, taking care to toss Tony onto the couch before he himself fell to the floor.

Tony threw an arm out to catch himself, accidentally knocking over a table lamp in the process, and while Steve sat up and rubbed his elbow where he'd hit it against the floor, and Tony frowned at the broken lamp that now sat in pieces on the floor, the others looked over from where they still sat at the table. There was a moment of silence where you could probably hear a pin drop if someone was stupid enough to try it before Barton said a sing-song, "Whatcha doing?"

"Lab," they both said in unison then turned to each other in surprise. Tony then started to say, "I said I would show him—" while Steve said, "Tony said he wanted to show me—" and they turned to each other in surprise again as Natasha said, "Maybe there's something to this 'soul mate' business after all?"

"Because they're thinking of the same exact bad lie to tell us?" Rhodey said.

"Hey," Barton said and swirled his drink around some, "you gotta admit it's impressive. Usually in these situations, the idiots that get caught out can't keep their stories straight. Maybe you two really are _soul bonded_."

He made some weird 'witchy'-type hand gesture at that, and Steve just stared at him flatly before he pushed himself to his feet and brushed off his jeans.

"It's not important," he said, the manner all 'Captain America.' "Tony has to show me some improvements he wants to make to our communications system out in the field—"

"Bull. Shit," Barton said. "You're trying to sneak out— And before we've even had dessert!" He motioned over to Hill. "She went all the way to Brooklyn to get…whatever the hell it is she brought."

"A wedding cake I got on discount," Hill replied blandly. "Evidently the purple of the fondant wasn't exactly to the bride's specifications. I guess some of those tiny silver balls that they decorate with were a bit misplaced as well."

"I thought it was beautiful," Natasha said.

"You're not a bridezilla," Hill replied.

Tony sat up and stared at them. "You got us a rejected wedding cake?"

"Last-minute," Hill said with a shrug. "Can't be choosy."

"Hold on," he said and got up. "I don't remember you bringing anything in aside from the punchbowl and the stuff that goes in it."

"Clearly, you would make a terrible spy," she mused and took a sip of the punch.

"Yeah," Barton said and turned to her, "well, evidently _you_ don't understand the words 'some of those fancy cupcakes.'"

"Cake was cheaper."

"Uh, since when are we on a budget?" Barton glanced over at Tony a moment then turned back to the others. "Did Stark cut our funds and nobody told me?"

"Believe me," Tony said and went back over to the table, folding his arms and resting them atop the back of the chair he'd been sitting in, "if I cut your funding, you would know."

Steve joined beside him, folding his arms as well but standing upright instead of leaning onto the chair. "It's a very thoughtful gesture, but you really didn't need to get us a wedding cake."

"It's wasn't _supposed_ to be a wedding cake," Barton said and shot a look at Hill. Hill just shrugged at him.

"I suppose I could have gone with 'Happy 98th Birthday, Aunt Millie.'"

While Barton groaned and muttered, " _Fancy cupcakes_ ," under his breath, Bruce asked, "Why was that one discounted?"

Hill drew a breath, like she was preparing to deliver a blow. "Aunt Millie didn't make it to 98."

Rhodey whistled low and said, "Jeez, now I feel bad for Aunt Millie."

Thor frowned and turned to Hill. "I am sorry to hear of the passing of your loved one. I am certain that the heralds of—"

"Not her aunt, buddy," Wilson said and patted Thor's arm. "Just some stranger."

"Oh," Thor replied, though he looked confused as to why Hill was calling the woman 'aunt' when she wasn't even related.

"There was also a cute little 'It's a Girl!' one," Hill said, taking the attention off the recently departed 'Aunt Millie.' "But I thought that might hit a little too close to home for you two."

"Why?" Steve asked, eyebrow raised.

"Because clearly it must have been a boy," Natasha said.

"No," Steve said with a shake of his head. "I mean why would it hit close to home?"

Tony just shot him a perplexed look, which was matched by half the table, and Hill said, "I wasn't sure how…comfortable you two are with the whole…" She made one of those 'leading' motions with her hand, like she was trying to buy time or draw the word out of someone else. When no one spoke up, she cleared her throat and added, "Parents-to-be…thing."

"We're taking it one day at a time," Tony replied. "And can I say 'thank you' for not going with that one? Honestly, I think I'd take dead Aunt Millie's cake before some cutesy baby crap."

The room went dead silent at that, evidently no one sure how to respond to Tony's 'cutesy baby crap' comment, before Barton clapped his hands together and said, "So, rejected wedding cake! Who wants a slice? I know I could go for a slice."

Steve shook his head. "No."

"No?" Barton asked, his comment echoed by several of the others.

Steve shook his head again. "No, it's— We're not married yet. It's— You don't eat wedding cake before you get married. It's— It's not right."

"You do if you're testing it," Tony replied.

"I understand that, but we're not testing it. We shouldn't— Not until tomorrow. Not until after the clerk says we're married."

Natasha smiled at him. "Steve, are you trying to tell us something?"

"Such as?"

"You're disturbingly superstitious about certain things?" Barton said, and for some reason, Steve seemed to take offense to that.

"I'm not— It's not— I just don't think we should eat _wedding cake_ before there's even been a wedding. It— It just feels like tempting fate to me. Look, I'm not saying we can't eat someone else's rejected wedding cake tomorrow after the ceremony, just…" He made a face and scratched his forehead. "I just don't think we should do it tonight," he finished, a little weak, like he wasn't comfortable with sharing what was probably some sort of old-fashioned and outdated rationale for not wanting to eat the rejected cake.

"Told you," was all Wilson said before Barton turned to the assembled group and said, "Well, I guess now's as good a time as any."

Steve's eyes narrowed at that. "For what?"

To say Tony was blindsided or caught unaware would be an understatement. Like the flip of a switch, they were all up, all taking presumably predetermined places as they made their move — one that had clearly been discussed at length at some point prior. Or maybe the years of working together had finally paid off and they all just knew instinctively what to do without having to run it past each other.

Steve stepped back, dropping his arms as he went to take a defensive stance, and he reached out a hand to try to put Tony behind him, but Bruce and Rhodey grabbed hold of Tony and pulled him away from Steve while Thor, without preamble, made for Steve, grabbing him and throwing him over his shoulder in such an easy and fluid motion it was like he'd done it a thousand times before.

"What the hell?" Tony cried out at them while Steve said, "Thor, put me down," grinding out the words like he was chewing gravel.

"Yeah," Barton said, appearing from somewhere with a couple of overnight bags. "That's not happening." He handed one off to Wilson, who took it and nodded at Thor to follow them over to the elevator.

"What the hell are you doing?" Tony cried and watched as Steve struggled to get free of Thor's grasp as Thor carried him over to the elevator.

"Captain, I believe…for your own safety…you should…cease your…strenuous undertakings," Thor said as he fought to keep Steve from getting the better of him. Tony knew at that moment he was seeing not a six-foot, two hundred and forty pound super soldier but a scrappy, ninety pound weakling fighting for what he thought was right.

"Goddamn it, what are you doing?" he cried again, trying to pull his arms out of Bruce's and Rhodey's grips.

"Tradition," Barton said.

" _Tradition?_ " Tony sputtered then looked from Rhodey to Bruce and then to his disappearing fiancé, who was gnashing his teeth together, his jaw doing that thing it did whenever something was really pissing him off.

"Thor," Steve said, ceasing his struggles and trying again for more 'Captain America' than 'Steve Rogers,' "I'm ordering you to put me down."

"Not in the field, Cap," Barton said as he hit the button for the elevator. "Don't have to listen to a damned order you give when you're not in your official capacity."

"Uh, but you're _kidnapping_ him," Tony pointed out and then looked at Hill and Natasha, who were just standing around, drinks in-hand, watching the shit-show. "Are you just going to stand around and let this happen?"

But Natasha just stepped over to him and said, "Why not? It's tradition for the couple not to see each other before the wedding, and we know you two would never do that voluntarily."

Steve groaned and rolled his eyes, most of the fight going out of him as he slumped over Thor's shoulder, and Tony sputtered a few times as he processed what this meant and said, "Are you fucking kidding me? Is there _anything_ traditional about our arrangement? Why would we start now?"

"I don't know, man," Rhodey said but didn't loosen his hold on Tony's arm any. "You are the one insisting on getting married 'cause you're knocked up."

"That's not— What? No, that's— That's not the only reason we're getting married, all right? We're engaged. We've been engaged. We're just…speeding up the process a little bit. And, look, isn't that a little stupid and old-fashioned and superstitious not to let us spend the night with each other?"

"Cap won't let us eat _cake_ until you two are married," Barton grumbled, but Tony ignored him to continue his point.

"Look, we've been sleeping in the same bed as each other for a year-and-a-half now. We're all adults here. I don't think there's any reason to—"

"Oh, my god," Barton muttered. "Blah, blah, blah. Look, just kiss each other goodnight so we can get the hell out of here, OK? I promise your baby-daddy will be in tip-top shape the next time you see him. He can't even get drunk on Thor's special Asgardian homebrew."

" _Baby-daddy?_ " Steve murmured like the expression was foreign to him, evidently not hearing or not caring about the 'Asgardian homebrew' comment, and Tony shook his head and said to Barton, "Yeah, I don't think that expression even _fits_ in this—"

Barton made a hand motion like he was waiting for Tony to get on with it, and Wilson laughed and smacked his arm and said, "No, man, come on. Let him whine. I'd rather listen to that than the Grade-A 'you-have-absolutely-no-right-to-do-this' lecture we're gonna get from Cap as soon as we step on that elevator."

"Am I that predictable?" Steve asked, sheepish, like he'd already been formulating his speech in his head.

"Very," Natasha said, glass at her lips, "but we figure we'll keep you around anyway."

"Thanks," he muttered and then startled a bit as Thor carried him back over to Tony.

"The hour of our departure is upon us," Thor said, "and I believe it is time for our brothers-in-arms soon to be united in the sacred bonds of Midgardian matrimony to bid their farewells to one another until the dawn of a new morn."

Rhodey jerked a thumb at him and said, "Is this guy for real?" while Barton rolled his eyes and said, "You say that shit on purpose because you think it's funny, don't you?"

Thor didn't reply to either of them, just turned so that Steve could face Tony, and Bruce and Rhodey kept their grips on Tony's arms as though letting him loose might allow him to steal Steve away from Thor and hightail it the hell out of there with the help of an Iron Man armor—

Say, that was an idea!

Steve, bent over Thor's shoulder, just smiled a little at Tony, and as Steve put his hands out to cup Tony's face, Tony reached up on his toes to kiss Steve and murmur, "They're idiots. All of them," against his lips.

"They mean well," Steve murmured in reply and stroked his thumbs against Tony's cheekbones. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow?"

Tony hummed and said, "Not unless I sneak down to wherever you are."

Barton snorted a laugh. "What makes you think we're staying in the tower?" He slapped Thor's other arm and said, "Come on. They'll stare googly-eyed at each other all night if we let them."

Thor nodded and began to lead away, and Steve kept his hands on Tony's face until Thor had gone too far, his fingertips falling away, though not before Tony was able to get in one last kiss against the pad of his finger.

The peanut gallery groaned at this, and it served them fucking right for this shit. He was definitely going to pay them back for this. Somehow. Who was most likely to get married next?

So, Barton, Thor, and Wilson left with Steve, taking him god-knew-where, and Tony was left in the penthouse with Hill, Natasha, Bruce, and Rhodey. Tony sat down on the couch, arms folded as he pouted while the others cleaned up the mess from dinner, and after they'd finished and Natasha and Hill made their way to the living area to take seats around the TV, Tony said, "This was rude, I want you to know that."

"What?" Natasha asked, legs tucked underneath her as she sat on an adjacent chair. "Wanting to have a little fun with you guys? One night apart isn't going to kill you."

"How do you know? We're 'bondmates' or whatever," he said, using finger quotes on the word. "Maybe if we're not within arm's reach of each other at all times, we die?"

"I think you've already proven that not to be the case," Hill said as she kicked her feet up onto the table.

"Maybe it just suddenly developed?"

"What?" Bruce asked as he and Rhodey came back into the living area, Bruce with a cup of tea and Rhodey with a bottle of water.

"Nothing," Natasha said, waving the remote control in the air a little bit. "Tony's just looking for excuses to track down Steve."

"What else is new?" Rhodey said and sat down next to him while Bruce sat down on the other side of him. "So, you're really doing this? You're really getting married?"

"Really and truly," he said with a nod.

Rhodey whistled and shook his head. "Wow…my boy's all grown up."

Tony grinned at him. "Proud of me, peach blossom?"

Rhodey sat there, almost like he was pondering this and trying to figure how he wanted to phrase exactly what he wanted to say.

"Happy for you," he finally appeared to decide on.

Tony met his gaze and held it a moment, the true, earnest smile of his oldest friend in the world, and with his eyes going watery for about the millionth time since this whole thing had happened to him, he reached out and pulled him into a hug, tight and with all the love and affection he felt for his best bro.

"Thank you," he murmured to him, and though he didn't really care if anyone else in the room heard it, he still really wanted it to be something just between him and Rhodey. Rhodey's approval meant a lot to him, and not that he thought he would have _not_ married someone just because Rhodey didn't approve of them — though, to be honest, it would probably have given him pause — it was nice to know that Rhodey, at least, accepted and approved of what he was doing.

"Don't mention it," Rhodey replied, hugging him and patting his back. "Steve's a lucky guy."

"So am I," he said and didn't lessen his hold on Rhodey.

Rhodey let out a breath, and he patted Tony's back some more and said, "Yeah, but so's he— And don't even give me any of that 'he's luckier' crap. You're both lucky, all right? You're both lucky you found each other. Sometimes I think you're the only two that could actually handle each other."

"Of course we are," Tony said but still didn't let go of Rhodey. "We're soul mates."

"I know you're joking, but I'm starting to think there might be something to that. OK, I love you, man, but you're starting to cut off my circulation. I know you're used to hugging a really-built super soldier, but not all of us are forged from steel."

Tony let go finally, and Rhodey patted his back once more as he sat back. He blinked away the remnants of tears that had collected at the corners of his eyes then turned to Bruce, who was fucking _frowning_ at him for some reason.

"What?" he muttered. "What, big guy? What's wrong?"

Bruce hesitated a bit, and he ran a fingertip over the lip of the teacup and said, "I— I just want to make sure you and Steve are doing this for the right reasons. Just because you're preg—"

"Do not say that word—"

"—nant doesn't mean you have to get married in this day and age. No one will think less of you. I know none of us will."

Tony sighed and rolled his eyes. "Look, Steve and I have been engaged for how long now? I mean, we put it off because I kind of wanted a big ol' bash to show off with, and that takes time to plan. Plus, with the whole rooting out Hydra cells and other Avengers' business, wedding plans got pushed to the backburner. It's not like I haven't wanted to marry Steve since he asked me. We just…haven't found the time to do it."

"Until now," Natasha said.

"Yeah."

"So, why now?" Hill asked, and Tony shrugged, pulling his legs up onto the couch and tucking into himself protectively.

"Before any other crazy shit happens. Because I want to say we were married. Because yeah, OK, maybe there's a part of me that is more traditional than I'd like to admit I am, and maybe I don't want my kid born a bastard."

"Tony, you don't have to—" Bruce said with a sigh, but Natasha cut him off with a good-natured, "How old-school of you."

"My mother was Italian," he said by way of explanation, and the others just nodded their understanding.

"Hey, man," Rhodey said, and Tony turned his attention to him, "I forgot to tell you before. I'm really sorry, but Pepper isn't able to make it and sends along her regards. Actually," he said and laughed some, "she's really, really pissed that you two just suddenly decided to do this crazy thing at the last minute, but she said, and I quote, ' _Some_ of us have actual jobs to do and can't just take off time in the middle of the week to go to a wedding that should have been over and done with six months ago.'"

Hill and Natasha nodded their agreement — at what part of Rhodey's statement, Tony wasn't sure — and Tony frowned and took a breath before he said, "Yeah, I should probably call her to explain, shouldn't I?"

He hadn't even thought about it before, but now that he was aware, it really hurt that Pepper wasn't going to make it. Sure, there was the history between them, but they were friends first and foremost, and he totally wanted her there for his big day.

His bottom lip wobbled some as he tried to keep his composure — he really had no desire to cry in front of Bruce or Hill — and he bit it to keep his emotions at bay. Fucking. Hormones. And fuck Steve. Forget what he said. This was totally his fault.

"Probably," Rhodey said, completely oblivious to the tumult going on in Tony's mind. "So, how's it working for you two? Are you taking his name?"

"Actually," Tony said, exhaling a deep, calming breath as he directed his answer to the entire peanut gallery that was suddenly intrigued by Rhodey's question, "we're kind of taking each other's names."

"Wait, you're going to be 'Tony Rogers' and he's going to be 'Steve Stark'?" Rhodey asked, and Tony groaned and rolled his eyes.

"OK, now you're just being deliberately obtuse. Stark-Rogers. We went with Stark-Rogers. It sounds better. Rolls off the tongue."

"He didn't insist on it being the other way?" Bruce asked.

"Are you kidding? He lives to contradict me. I just explained to him that my way sounded better and made more sense."

"Meaning you stuck your fingers in your ears and screamed until you got your way."

"Why does everyone insist that Steve just gives into me?"

"Because he does," Natasha said, but there was no judgment behind the words. Just truth. "Because he spoils you."

"Are you saying I don't deserve it?"

The assembled group was quiet a moment, and Tony realized their light teasing had taken a turn for the serious when Rhodey said gravely, "Of course you do, Tones."

Tony felt some emotion begin to well up again at that, and he groaned a little and rolled his eyes and tried to blink away the tears, hoping that Rhodey and the others wouldn't see. OK, hoping Bruce and Hill wouldn't see. Rhodey had already seen him at his worst, and, strangely, he was OK with Natasha seeing him this way, too.

But Rhodey, perhaps seeing that Tony was getting worked up, said, "But that doesn't mean I won't kick his ass if he hurts you. Got me? You tell me if he hurts you, and I will roundhouse Captain America, no questions asked."

Tony laughed, tears blurring his sight. "I don't think that'll be necessary."

"Good," Rhodey said with a nod. "Hey, man, congrats, though. I didn't get to say it before, but I mean it. I loved Pepper, I still love Pepper, and Pepper was good for you at the time, but Cap's the best thing that's ever happened to you, and I mean that."

"Thanks," he murmured, and he looked around at the four surrounding him, eagerly hanging on his every word, then thought about their conversation and said, "Why do I feel like I should be breaking into the first verse of 'Summer Nights'?"

Only Rhodey didn't seem confused by his reference.

"You have all seen _Grease_ ," he said, indignant. "Don't even pretend like you haven't."

"Are you the 'Danny' or the 'Sandy' in this situation?" Natasha asked.

Tony, god help him, actually thought about this. "Well, clearly, I'd want to say 'Danny,' but if I'm being honest with myself—" he sighed, "—yeah, actually probably 'Sandy' — not," he countered quickly, "because I'm a woman but because Sandy was kind of the rich, prissy princess and Danny was the ne'er-do-well from the wrong side of the tracks, and, yeah, in that case, I'm probably more 'Sandy' and the guy that grew up in the shitty Brooklyn tenement during the Depression is probably more 'Danny.'"

Rhodey sat, his hand fisted against his mouth like he was trying very, very hard not to laugh. The others just looked at him in various degrees of perplexity.

"Don't even pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about," he said. "It is an American classic, and you've all seen it."

"Clearly not as many times as you have," Natasha said, and Hill nodded her agreement.

"I don't know why I put up with any of you," he said then yawned.

"Because you love us," Natasha said breezily then added, "Why don't you go to bed and get some rest? Got a big day tomorrow. We'll finish cleaning up."

"Fine," he said, figuring it was no use fighting because he wouldn't win against Natasha anyway.

He reached out and grabbed his phone from the table, though Rhodey just pinched it between his fingers and took it from him. "Uh," he said and turned to his oldest friend. "Who said you could do that?"

"Nope," he said and gave a curt shake of his head. "Not calling Steve."

"Uh, I was going to call _Pepper_ and apologize for getting married at a bad time for her."

"Call her tomorrow or the day after. She won't mind."

"Or you could just give me your phone."

Rhodey just blinked before he said, "All right," and set Tony's phone out of his reach before he pulled his out of his pocket and said, "Call Pepper," to it.

Tony rolled his eyes as Rhodey's phone began to dial Pepper, and Rhodey, rather than handing the phone over, held it up to Tony's ear so that he could ear.

"This is ridiculous," he muttered before Pepper's voice came over the line. " _Hello?_ "

"Hey, Pepper-pot."

Silence before, " _Tony?_ "

"Uh…you know anyone else that calls you that?"

" _No, just… Why are you calling from Jim's phone?_ "

He sighed. "Funny story that isn't actually all that funny. So, as you probably know, I'm getting married tomorrow, and my wonderful and thoughtful friends thought it would be 'fun' for us to engage in some old-fashioned wedding superstition crap, so they _literally_ kidnapped my fiancé and took him god-knows-where — honest to god, Thor threw him over his massive shoulder and carried him out of here like a fucking caveman — and I'm stuck here at home using Rhodey's phone because he doesn't trust me to use my own or even _handle_ his because he thinks I'm going to use it to call Steve."

Pepper was silent a moment before she said, " _Would you?_ "

"That— That's not the _point!_ The point is they don't trust me—"

" _With good reason! I'm sorry. I'm not yelling at you, really. It's just been a long day—_ "

He'd noticed she'd sounded a little frazzled and flustered the moment she'd picked up the phone. He'd just assumed she was frazzled and flustered with him. That was usually the way it went, wasn't it?

"Hmm… Well, then I think what you need is to take a nice, mid-week vacation out to New York where you get to watch me marry the world's youngest WWII vet."

Pepper laughed. " _I'm sorry, Tony. I wish I could. There's just too much going on right now for me to up and leave in the middle of the week_."

"Something I should be worried about?"

" _Hmm? Oh, no, I don't think so. Trust me, I'd tell you if it was._ "

"And it would probably go in one ear and out the other."

" _Probably_ ," she said with a sigh, though she didn't sound annoyed or even tired. More amused, to be honest. " _You know, I really am upset with you about this. I don't know if Jim told you—_ "

"He told me you're against having fun—"

" _Tony!_ "

"All right! Calm down, Peppy-poo! I'm not calling your character into question—"

" _What would you like?_ "

"Uh, what?"

" _For a wedding gift. What would you like?_ " she asked, and Tony could hear the click of heels like she was walking somewhere. " _I'm sorry, Tony, I don't really have time to talk now. I promise we'll talk more after you get back from your honeymoon_."

Tony blinked. Fuck, he hadn't even thought about a _honeymoon_.

"Uh…yeah, sure," he said. "Not actually sure when that honeymoon's going to be, but OK, we can talk after that."

" _You mean you're just getting married and that's it?_ " she asked, and there was an echo to her words like she was in an enclosed space like a garage.

"Uh… I guess… We haven't actually _talked_ about a honeymoon—"

Pepper groaned a little and said, " _I have to— Tony, I have another call coming in I have to take. Look, call me this weekend if you have time, OK? Let me know what you want for a gift."_

"Pep, you don't have to—"

" _I want to. I know you can buy anything you want, but I want to get you something. Let me know, OK? I love you, and I'm happy for you, and I wish you and Steve nothing but the best of luck. Also, I promise that when I get married, I will give you more than twenty-four-hours' notice, and I fully expect you to be there with bells on_."

Tony nodded. "Square deal."

" _Bye, Tony. And tell the others I said 'hi._ '"

"Will do," he said then said his final 'goodbye' to her and went to hang up the phone, but Rhodey pulled it away from his ear and did the honors for him. Tony thought about the weirdness of the call and Pepper's attitude before he turned to Rhodey and said, "Is something up?"

"Huh?"

"With SI, is something up? Pepper sounded a little more frazzled than usual."

Rhodey just pocketed his phone. "She's the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world."

"Yeah, I know, but she sounded even more frazzled than usual. Is something up? I thought I saw something about Hammeroid getting released early for 'good behavior' or some bullshit like that. He's not trying to cause problems for her, is he? And what the hell are they even doing releasing him? Don't we have standards in this country anymore? Could we deport him? Where could we deport him to?"

"He's not out yet," Natasha said. "And I don't think you can deport natural-born American citizens."

"Uh, you've met Hammer. I don't think you could ever apply the phrase 'natural-born' to him."

"I don't think it's Hammer," Rhodey said with a sigh. "I think she's just tired and overworked and disappointed that she can't be at your wedding. Wouldn't you be disappointed if it was the other way around and you couldn't go to her wedding?"

"Uh, I call walking her down the aisle, so yeah, she _can't_ get married without me."

"Wow," Natasha said, blinking placid green eyes that showed just a hint of intrigue. "You really are old-fashioned, aren't you? Even believe in that whole 'giving the bride away' thing."

He rolled his eyes. "It's not— Look, I just think it's nice, all right? I don't think I _own_ her or anything. Clearly, I do not own Pepper Potts. But, yeah, when she finally decides to make an honest man out of Happy, I have every intention of walking her down that aisle."

"What if I wanted to do it?" Rhodey asked, though Tony knew it was simply for conversation's sake and not because he actively wanted to walk Pepper down the aisle at her wedding.

"Uh, yeah, sorry, pea pod. Already called it."

"What if she doesn't want either one of you?" Hill asked.

"She will," Tony said definitively then yawned.

"Tony, go to bed," Natasha said.

"Hmm…I'd love to, but see, I'm used to sleeping next to a big, strong furnace, and you took my big, strong furnace away from me, so I'm not really sure I'm going to be _able_ to sleep tonight."

"You will," Natasha said then nodded at the stairs. "Go. We'll clean up. You'll fall asleep in no time. I'm sure if you really need to, you could just dress a pillow in one of Steve's shirts.

Probably'll fit the pillow as well as it does him."

"If you mean 'shape,' then clearly you need to have your eyes checked because there is no way a lumpy pillow could ever be confused with that expertly-sculpted marble he calls a torso. If you mean because the shirt would be too small for even the pillow, well, I can't argue with you there." He pointed a finger at her. "But I can tell you don't you _dare_ tell him his correct shirt size."

"I think we're doing the world a favor by _not_ telling him that," Hill said.

Bruce frowned at them and said, "Do any of you like Steve for his _mind?_ "

Natasha just shrugged, but Hill said, "Nothing wrong in pointing out his quite obvious physical attributes."

Rhodey nodded and glanced to Bruce. "I'm going to take that as a 'no.'"

"We like Steve," Natasha said. "But he's a very attractive man. I mean, he doesn't have anything on Thor—" She shared a look with Hill, who nodded her robust agreement. "But he's still very good-looking."

Tony scoffed. "Please," he muttered. "Thor looks like fucking Alfalfa compared to Steve."

"Are you talking about the sprout or the Rascal?" Bruce asked.

"He means the one from the Little Rascals," Rhodey said, and Natasha made a face of wry amusement.

"And you make fun of Steve for his dated references."

He rolled his eyes. "Honestly, that probably came to me _because of_ Steve. His old man-ness is starting to rub off on me. It's really disturbing. I think it's _in him_ somehow — in his fluids or something."

"Like his semen?" Hill mused, her voice lilting up teasingly on the last word.

Tony opened and closed his mouth a few times as he stared at her then said, "Whatever," and got up. "I'm tired. I'm going to bed. You people are disgusting. And rude. For keeping me away from my _soul mate_. But whatever. It's fine. I can deal with it. It's only for tonight, right?"

"Just tonight," Hill said with a nod. "We promise."

"Gotta have some tradition," Natasha added.

"Fine," he said and went over to the stairs. He stopped at the bottom and yawned again then rubbed his abdomen and added, "I'm going to bed." He pointed at them. "No talking about me while I'm gone."

"We would never," Bruce said. Tony, very maturely, flipped him off.

He climbed the steps to the second floor and went into the bedroom. The lights came up on entry, and Tony closed the door behind him and let out a heavy breath. He went over to the dresser and grabbed the pajamas he'd neatly folded and put away that morning (Steve's pajama bottoms were still bunched at the foot of the bed), and he stripped off that day's ensemble. He set it on the chair beside the dresser then stood in front of the mirror, looking at his body in nothing but a bra and a pair of underwear. He was getting used to the shapely woman that stared back at him, but — he reached down and put a flat palm against the ever-growing swell of his lower abdomen — he wasn't sure he'd ever really get used to _this_.

He rubbed his hand against the swell, a soothing up-and-down motion that was almost instinctual. Goddamn, it was still just so…

He shook his head and turned away from the mirror. He grabbed his pajamas and slid into them, leaving the bra on because he was finding it more comfortable to sleep with it on than not. He looked down at Steve's barren side of the bed, one that would remain empty until sometime tomorrow, and he burrowed into his side of the bed. JARVIS put down the lights as he settled into the pillows, and without thinking, he reached down and began to stroke his abdomen once again, gently, protectively, and it wasn't until he had been lying there staring off into the darkness for a few minutes that he even realized what he was doing. He glanced down at the small swell hidden by the blankets and said, "You are nothing but trouble."

He sighed and flopped a little to try and get comfortable, but it was kind of hard to do without a super soldier there to be spooned by, and he thought about going down to the lab to work on some stuff, but he was sure Natasha, at the least, had JARVIS spying on him and set to inform on him if he so much as glanced in the direction of the elevator.

"Say, J, just out of curiosity, where's Steve?"

" _I am sorry, Sir, but I am not at liberty to say_."

He sat up a little. "Uh, yes, you are. I'm your boss. You work for me, not anyone else."

" _I understand, but as Agent Romanoff explained it, you being made unaware of Captain Rogers's whereabouts is part of the pre-wedding 'fun.' I can, however, assure you most confidently that he is safe and well-cared for._ "

" _Fun_ ," he muttered. "'Safe and well-cared for' sounds like a potted plant, J. Hey, question. Did any of the others know about Steve's and my little trip down to the license bureau today?"

" _I have no record of you informing them of your visit._ "

"Yeah, no, I'm thinking more along the lines of a certain bigmouth AI that was probably a little too forthcoming with certain pieces of information."

" _I apologize, Sir_ ," JARVIS said, sounding anything but contrite, " _but neither you nor Captain Rogers issued any orders precluding me from making the other Avengers aware of your plans for today. When Agent Romanoff asked where you and the Captain were this afternoon, I merely informed her that you and the Captain had gone to seek out a marriage license._ "

"No wonder it seemed so fucking rehearsed," he muttered then said, "Yeah huh, so, you clearly knew about all of this and, instead of informing me of it, you thought it would be a good idea to go along with it?"

" _I thought perhaps you might be in need of some 'fun,' considering the events of the past several months_."

He snorted a laugh and said, "You're not wrong," before he flopped back down and tried to get comfortable again. He sighed and tossed and turned, and he lay there and stared at the ceiling for he didn't know how long before he said, "J?"

" _Sir?_ "

"Do you think it's…weird…that, completely making me question everything I'd ever thought about myself aside, I'm kind of enjoying this whole thing?"

" _I'm not sure I understand the question._ "

He shrugged and turned on his side, grabbing Steve's unused pillow and tucking it between his legs. "Never mind, J. 'Night."

" _Pleasant dreams, Sir._ "


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not my best. I just couldn't really get it to flow the way I wanted it to. I apologize for that.

* * *

His asshole friends had decided that he and Steve weren't allowed to see each other until the actual ceremony.

Tony practically cried when he was met with that news the next morning, Hill, Natasha, Rhodey, and Bruce sitting in his kitchen and helping themselves to some sort of bountiful breakfast spread that had to have been delivered while he was still passed out in his big, empty, cold, barren, lonely bed. Sleeping alone for the night had been bad enough. Steve's presence was a sturdy rock for him to relax against and content himself with, and not having that, well, _sucked_. But he'd thought, at the very least, he could see him this morning for breakfast. Now—

Now he was going to have to wait eight more fucking hours to see Steve again. God, he didn't even know if he'd make _one_.

But with no choice in the matter — and _that_ was starting to become a little too uncomfortably commonplace in his life — he sat down at the kitchen island and helped himself to some eggs and sausage and pancakes (and when he went to reach for the coffee carafe, some traitor shoved a glass of orange juice into his hand), and he stabbed a piece of all three with a fork and shoved the bite in his mouth then grumbled about how this wasn't fair and it was discrimination and something about how they'd understand if _they_ were soul-bonded to someone else and whenever one of them got married, he was going to repay them ten-fold for their treachery.

They couldn't even be bothered with the illusion of humoring him, and instead, Natasha spread some jelly on a slice of toast and said, "So, what are you planning on wearing for your big day?"

He shrugged and stabbed another forkful of egg, sausage, and pancake. "I don't know," he said and shoved the bite in his mouth. "Clothes, I guess."

He chewed the bite, and Natasha said, "I figured that," a tiny smirk tugging at her mouth. "What sort of clothes?"

He went to reach for the coffee carafe again only to have it moved out of his reach by Bruce. He glared at him, though Bruce just shrugged and went back to his half-a-slice of grapefruit — seriously _, grapefruit?_ — and he turned back to Natasha and said, "I don't know. Maybe I could just wear one of my suits or something. Or maybe the Iron Man armor. That'd be kind of cool, right?"

"Do you _want_ to wear either of those things?"

He thought about it and said, "The armor might be cool to get married in. Think Steve would like it?"

"I think Steve would see the symbolism in it," Bruce said and dug a spoon into the flesh of the fruit.

"Meaning?"

"As cool as it would be to get married in the Iron Man armor," Rhodey said and piled a slice of toast with eggs and bacon, "I think the Cap might see that as marrying 'Iron Man' when he really wants to marry Tony Stark."

"But Tony Stark is Iron Man."

"It's still kind of a symbolic thing," Bruce said. "Like if he got married in his suit, he might see that as you marrying Captain America instead of Steve Rogers."

He grabbed a slice of toast and spread some butter on it. "Yeah, but Steve Rogers _is_ Captain America."

"It's the principle of the thing," Natasha said, and Tony bit into his slice of toast. "Captain America isn't marrying Iron Man—"

"Uh, yeah," he said through a half-chewed mouthful, "he kind of is—"

"—Steve Rogers is marrying Tony Stark. But that's just my take on it."

Natasha bit into her slice of jellied toast and shot him a pointed look, and Tony looked amongst all four of them before he dropped his own slice of toast on his plate and said, "So, I take it Steve isn't wearing his Captain America uniform then?"

"Not from what I hear," Rhodey said and bit into his newly-formed bacon-and-egg sandwich.

"Yeah? What do you hear?"

"Can' shay," he said, spitting through a mouthful of food.

"Whatever," he muttered and stabbed at the food on his plate. "I guess one of my suits then. I don't know. Think there's one I can make work. Have to see about a shirt. Red's a good color to get married in, right?"

"Do you _want_ to wear one of your suits?" Natasha asked, like she knew something Tony had yet to accept for himself.

He met her knowing gaze then glanced briefly at Hill, who seemed to know something as well, before he grumbled and stabbed at the food on his plate again.

"What was that?" Hill asked, cloyingly innocent like she knew exactly what he'd said but wanted him to repeat it for the rest of the class.

He huffed out a sigh. "I said _maybe_ I could wear something a little more _fitting_ to my current figure."

Natasha and Hill smiled like that was exactly what they'd wanted to hear. And it must have been because once breakfast was all said and done, he found himself out shopping with them because he only had the one dress, and the deep burgundy probably wasn't the most ideal for a wedding. Or so they'd told him, anyway. He wasn't convinced. He'd looked fucking good in that dress, and wasn't that what counted?

But they must have already had a game plan in place, as this time, it was just the one store, and Natasha stormed through the displays and racks like a woman on a mission before she found the dress she was looking for.

Tony and Hill brought up the rear, and Natasha picked through the selection to find what she'd determined was Tony's size, and when she'd found it, without a word, she pulled it from the rack and held it up for approval. Hill nodded and said, "Looks even better in person."

Tony just eyed over the sleeveless dress with the scooped back, and he pinched the fabric between his fingers and said, "Is this a joke?"

"Well, the price definitely is," Hill said and turned the tag over to reveal a price of around $1400. "But for last-minute, there's not much you can do."

He shook his head, "No, I mean it's, uh, _white_."

"So?" Natasha said and raised an eyebrow.

He hedged and said, "I don't know how fitting it is to wear _white_ to my wedding. I mean a white dress like this. Isn't that… I mean, aren't you supposed to be…"

"Can't you wear whatever you want?" Hill asked.

"Besides," Natasha said, "if you're really concerned about not being _pure_ enough to wear white—"

"Which is stupid and ridiculous and sexist," Hill muttered.

"—Steve's the only one you've slept with in _that_ body, right?"

He thought about this a moment then said, "Whatever," and grabbed it from Natasha's hands. "Is there a dressing room around here? I'm not buying this unless I look fucking fantastic in it."

He found a dressing room, and he was about to step into the dress to try it on when the door opened and Natasha barged right in without even bothering to knock, evidently not caring that Tony was standing there in his underwear. She held a white satin and lace bustier out to him and said, "Here, try this on under it."

He took the garment in hand and pursed his lips at her. "I think you're having a little _too_ much fun with me like this."

"Just want you to look your best," she said with an easy smile.

"Yeah? You know what Steve's going to show up wearing, right? A pair of jeans, a sweatshirt, and a backwards baseball cap like he's some frat-boy dude-bro. You know that, right?"

Natasha just shrugged. "Maybe," she replied as Hill showed up with two packages in her hand.

"I wasn't sure if you wanted white or nude," she said and showed whatever it was to Natasha, who shrugged and said, "Both."

Hill nodded, and Tony glanced between them for an answer before Natasha said, "Stockings," and left it at that.

Yeah, she was having _way_ too much fun with this.

So, once they'd had the decency to leave him alone for a moment, Tony tried on the ensemble, fitting himself into the bustier that was just a smidge snug against his abdomen and fighting a little with the zipper on the dress before he got it zipped and turned to check himself out. It was actually a pretty tasteful dress, simple, with what Natasha described as a boat neck and a banded effect that gave the appearance of an hourglass shape before it straightened into what he was pretty sure was called an A-line skirt. Pepper had used that expression in the past, he was pretty sure. It pulled just a little taut at his abdomen where the swell was becoming more pronounced by the day, and he put his hand there and rubbed it a bit before Natasha said from the other side of the door, "Well?"

He considered himself then said, "It's OK, I guess."

"Can we see?" Hill asked, and Tony heaved out a breath and opened the door to show them what he looked like. He held his breath as he waited for them to make their judgment on him, and both women just gave him knowing and approving smiles before Natasha said, "I told you," and Hill replied with, "I never doubted you for a second."

Tony glanced down at himself, hand still over the slight swell of his abdomen. "It looks OK?"

"I think it looks great. Goes well with your coloring," Natasha said then added, "I think Steve will appreciate it very much."

He looked down at himself. "Are you kidding? I look like I'm pregnant."

"You _are_ pregnant," Hill reminded him quietly.

He shot them both annoyed and perplexing looks before he muttered, "Whatever, fine, I'll get it. Is this it?"

It wasn't. As it turned out, he needed shoes, which they picked up at the same department store (white again; good god, was this a joke?), and then he needed the proverbial old, new, borrowed, and blue. The 'new' constituted the dress; the 'old' was a birdcage veil that Hill had produced from…somewhere; he figured it was best not to ask from where; the 'borrowed' was a pendant necklace from Natasha; the 'blue' was the stupid and cliché garter.

"Are you kidding?" he asked as Natasha slipped it up his leg later that day, sitting it over the lace-trimmed top of the white stockings she'd insisted he wear. "I mean, isn't that he height of tacky?"

"Of course not," Natasha said as she positioned it to make sure the skirt of his dress covered it. "Besides, Steve can pull it off with his teeth later on."

"Oh, I didn't need to know that," Bruce muttered from the kitchen. Tony was currently getting dressed in the broad, open space of the living area, but it was still Bruce's own damned fault for eavesdropping. Rhodey didn't seem to have a problem with it. Of course, Rhodey had caught him doing some pretty nasty shit over the years, so nothing — not even the thought of what Tony and his super soldier husband might do to each other on their wedding night — fazed him anymore.

God, he loved that gummy bear.

"Hey, check my legs while you're down there. Did I get all the hair? Holy shit, leg shaving is ridiculous, and I will never give any woman any grief about it ever, ever again. And underarms. What the fuck? Why is there even hair there to begin with?"

"Didn't you find that out the other day?" Hill asked him as she secured the veil to his upswept hairdo. Again, _way_ too much fun with this.

"Yeah, but then I had to touch it up because it doesn't last. I mean look, I get why men shave their faces. We'd all look like burly mountain men if we didn't—"

He stopped dead in his train of thought and said, "Wonder what Steve would look like with a beard?"

"Isn't that what you are?" Bruce asked as he stood in the doorway to the kitchen and watched Hill and Natasha finish helping him get dressed. Rhodey pushed past him and came into the room, giving Tony an appreciative look-over as he took a seat and began to type something into his phone.

"Uh, no. That would only be if we were both kidding ourselves. I have it from a reliable source that Steve is very much attracted to me in both bodies. God, how weird is it that I can even say that?"

"Any weirder than you also being able to say you're carrying Captain America's baby?" Natasha said then patted his calf. "You look good. Steve won't be appalled by your grooming habits."

He nodded then said, "Yeah, but what do you think Steve would look like with a beard? You think he could pull it off? Some guys can. Like, uh, what's-his-face from _The Notebook_."

Three perplexed sets of eyes stared at him — Rhodey was still busy with his phone — and he glowered and said, "Romanoff, don't even try it. I know for a fact you've shed a tear at that movie."

"Of course I did," she said and stood up again. "Wasted two hours of my life watching it."

"Whatever," he said and rolled his eyes then snapped his fingers and said, "You know who's really hot with a beard? That guy, that, uh, oh, what the hell is his name? He was in that movie with the train and the snow. Kinda looks a little like Steve, don't you think?"

"I don't even know who or what you're talking about," Bruce said, and Hill and Natasha voiced their agreement with him. Tony rolled his eyes again and said another pissy, "Whatever," before he added, "Are we done here?"

Hill checked her watch. "Just about," she said and looked at Natasha, who looked at Rhodey, who stared at his phone a moment then said, "Yep, they're good," and stood up. He moved to stand beside Tony, and he gave him another glance-over and said, "Lookin' good, Tones."

"Yeah?"

"I mean, not how I imagined you'd look on your wedding day, but still fucking good." Tony smiled in appreciation, and Rhodey added, "My baby boy's all grown up."

"Yeah, that's debatable," Tony said but still let Rhodey pull him in for a careful hug and a pat on the back. Tony hugged him back, giving him a squeeze, and he whined a little when he realized there were tears collecting at the corners of his eyes.

"Goddamn it!" he said and pulled away. He went to wipe away the tears with his hand, but Hill produced a tissue, and said, "Dab, don't wipe. Nat and I spent a lot of time on that makeup."

He took the tissue from her and followed her advice, and once he'd gotten hold of his emotions again, he glared down at his abdomen and said, "This is all your fault!"

Unsurprisingly, the parasite had nothing to say for itself.

To be honest, weather-wise, it was a miserable day. It was relatively warm for that time of year, but the gray clouds of morning had opened up by that afternoon, drenching the city in a torrent of rainfall with the occasional rumble of thunder overhead. Though the initial downpour had subsided, a steady sprinkling of droplets remained, and a quick check of the weather on Rhodey's phone showed a bright-green splotch covering the Doppler image, one that did not look like it was about to clear out any time soon.

"Guess it was too much to hope for the fairy tale bright sunshine and chirping birds, yeah?" Tony mused as Hill passed out umbrellas to the group.

"Actually," Bruce said as Natasha motioned for them all to follow her over to the elevator, "rain on your wedding day is supposed to be good luck."

"Yeah, so's getting shit on by a bird. I think whoever came up with that was just trying to make themselves feel better for their miserable life," Tony said and followed Natasha onto the elevator, the others crowding in behind him.

"He's always so positive, isn't he?" Bruce mused.

They went down to the garage in the basement of the building, and Tony hit the button on the fob to unlock the R8. The lights flashed, and he made to go over to the driver's side, but Natasha gently nudged him aside and, when he wasn't paying attention, took the fob off of him.

"You can't drive yourself to your own wedding," she said.

"Uh, yeah, I think I can."

"Oh, come on, Tony," Bruce said. "Let Nat drive. She wants to do something nice for you."

"She just wants to drive my Audi."

Natasha shrugged and said, "Why can't it be both?" before she popped the door to the driver's side and slid in behind the wheel.

Tony grumbled a little bit but still went around and got into the passenger seat while Bruce, Rhodey, and Hill all squeezed into the backseat. As they buckled in, Natasha started the car, checked her mirrors (and readjusted them on him, damn her), then checked her phone and said, "We didn't have to be there at _exactly_ 3:45, right?"

"What? Why?" he asked and checked the time on the dashboard clock. 3:40. "Shit _fuck!_ Steve couldn't even get us down there in five minutes!"

Natasha shot him a knowing look and said, "Well, it's a good thing I'm not Steve then."

"Don't worry," Bruce said from the back seat as Natasha pulled out of the space and swung the car around the garage toward the exit bay, "it's typical for brides to be late to their wedding."

Tony obnoxiously cleared his throat and turned around to look at Bruce, lips twisted in a grimace and eyebrow arched, and Bruce at least had enough decency to look a _little_ ashamed at what he'd just said. However, Rhodey didn't help matters as he said, "To be fair, Tones, you are the one in the white dress."

Tony just looked over at his best and oldest friend, Hill biting her lips and trying to hide her amusement in the periphery, but Rhodey just shrugged and said, "It's true."

He stared at him a few more moments, and as Natasha exited the garage and pulled the car onto the street, he figured it wasn't worth arguing the matter and simply said , "Well, I suppose one of us had to wear the white dress, and Steve's just too fucking pale to wear white and get away with it."

"Not sure he could pull it off as well as you, either," Bruce said, some amount of sincerity in his words, and Tony nodded his approval to him.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," Bruce said, somehow sounding unsure — not that he didn't mean it but that he wasn't sure it was the right thing to say.

Not that Tony had a chance to really think about this at all, not when Natasha pressed the accelerator so hard that it threw Tony back against his seat or hit the brake so hard that he inadvertently leaned forward and had to catch himself against the dashboard, noting the tail-end of what he could only assume was a muttered Russian hex put upon the yellow cab that had cut in front of them. If Tony thought Steve was a reckless driver (everyone assumed Steve would drive like an old grandpa; everyone was wrong), Steve had nothing on Natasha, who obeyed the barest minimum of traffic laws as she flew through Midtown, zipped down a rain-slickened FDR Drive, and careened around lower Manhattan until she'd found an adequate parking spot by Worth Street. Bruce was a little shaken by the time he got out of the car, and Tony thought he saw the slight tinge of green in his eyes, but he just clapped Bruce on the arm and said, "Hulk out on my wedding day, and you'll definitely be off my Christmas card mailing list this year."

"Thanks," he said, again sounding unsure, but for an entirely different reason, and now somehow looking rumpled in a suit that had just been pressed for him an hour ago. How the hell did he manage that?

In the cloudy gloom of the wet afternoon, Tony slipped his oversized sunglasses onto his face, and he led the procession into the building, ignoring the quite obvious looks of confusion and intrigue being directed at the group by others coming and going from the building. Two of them were quite clearly Avengers, and Avengers that were dressed and primped and definitely on their way to someplace official, and before they were able to strut their way to a less crowded part of the building, Tony was certain he caught a few cell phones being pointed at them. Hopefully they wouldn't recognize him as Captain America's gorgeous mystery brunette with the sunglasses on, but even if they did, well, it wasn't like he and Steve had arrived together.

That might have caused a goddamned uproar.

They lost Bruce and Natasha somewhere along the way, so it was only Rhodey and Hill following him to the clerk's office. Rhodey was doing something on his phone, so he frowned at Hill and went to ask what had happened to the other two, but before he could even get the first word out, Hill smiled in that flat way that she had and said, "It's a surprise."

"Oh," he said just before Rhodey called out to him, "Hey, Tones!" He turned, and Rhodey was grinning and holding up his phone. "Somebody wants to say 'hi' to you."

He quirked his head a little in bemusement, and when he went over to look at Rhodey's phone, he was greeted with the grinning faces of Pepper and Happy, both smooshed into the frame and what he took to be some part of Pepper's office just barely visible in what little could be seen of the background.

" _Hi!_ " they both chorused to him before Pepper gasped and said, " _Tony, you look amazing!_ "

" _Lookin' pretty good, former boss!_ " Happy agreed.

He took the phone from Rhodey and said, "What the hell are you two—"

" _Hey, did you want us to come or not?_ " Happy asked. " _You drop a bombshell like that on people in the middle of the week— We're not all like the superfriends. We don't just hang around in your fancy tower all day and play video games. Some of us have real jobs to do._ "

"Yeah," he said, "looks like you're both working real hard right there."

" _It's called 'the end of the lunch hour,' ex-boss_."

"Whatever," he said with a roll of his eyes, but stupid, fucking emotion was beginning to well up from somewhere deep within once more. Maybe it wasn't _exactly_ in person, but Pepper had made it to his wedding after all. And Happy, too, but Pepper...Pepper had made it, and that's what mattered.

" _Who's going to give you away?_ " Pepper asked, grinning like a loon, but Tony saw evidence that she was getting emotional over things as well, her eyes looking a little red and watery through the connection.

"No one's giving me away. I'm not a livestock animal."

" _It's tradition, ex-boss. Someone's got to give the bride away_."

"It's not that kind of ceremony— And what do you mean _bride?_ "

Pepper was still grinning, and she motioned to his head and said, " _That's a really nice birdcage veil you've got there._ "

"It goes with the outfit—"

" _Hey, is that a white dress you got on?_ " Happy asked.

"OK, you know what—" he stared to say but was saved from having to explain anything when he caught sight of Thor bounding down the hallway toward them. He looked rather sharp in a nice, fitted suit (he had honest to god thought Thor would wear his full battle regalia), his long blonde hair pulled back into a neat ponytail at the base of his neck.

"Friends! You have arrived! I was sent out to make sure our Man of Iron did not, as the Captain put it, 'get cold feet.'" He glanced down to Tony's feet and frowned at the delicate lace-fabric pumps he saw there. "I fear your footwear does not protect you against the elements as well as they could."

" _Holy shit, he's serious,_ " Happy said from the phone, and while Rhodey turned away and Hill bit her lips to keep from laughing, Tony went over to him and slapped his arm and said, "Figure of speech, big fella. Steve's just afraid I'm going to back out." He stopped cold and pulled back a little. "Why? Is he backing out? Is there someone in there with him to make sure he doesn't run away?"

Thor laughed and said, "Fear not, my friend, your Captain is most anxious to see you and complete the vows of marriage you have sworn to take for each other." He then looked Tony over and said, "Though I understand you still feel yourself to be the invincible Man of Iron that we have come to know and trust, may I say you make quite a stunning vision of female beauty."

He swallowed, touched by the sincerity of Thor's words. It was stupid to get hung up on things like whether or not he was _pretty enough_ , but it still meant something to him to hear it. Good as he felt about himself and as much as he'd come to tolerate what had been done to him, there was still that part of him that was unsure of everything, that thought perhaps people — and not just Steve (though that was…yeah, that was probably not the case now) — were repulsed by what they saw because Tony might have the appearance of a woman, but he had been a man and a pregnant one at that.

At the same time, he was ashamed to accept the praise because…because that meant that, on some level, he _liked_ or accepted what had happened to him, and he wasn't sure he was quite ready to take that step yet. Oh, sure, he'd admitted to JARVIS that he was kind of enjoying the whole thing, but saying he _liked_ it or saying he _accepted_ it—

What did that say about who he really was if he did that?

"Yeah, well," he shrugged, deciding to play off Thor's words rather than allow himself any introspection through them, "work with what you got."

Thor just smiled at him, and he heard the click of heels against tile. He turned to see Natasha and Bruce coming toward them, a bouquet of colorful hydrangeas and alstroemeria in Natasha's hands. He rolled his eyes and said, "You really didn't have to do this," as she passed the bouquet off, Rhodey taking the phone from his hands in the exchange, but she just smiled and said, "You can't get married without a bouquet. Besides, we have to find out who's getting married next."

"Want me to make sure to toss it in your direction?" he asked as Thor nodded for them to follow after him.

Natasha just fixed him with a flat look, but it surprised him that she let her guard down enough for him to see actual pain in her green irises, like she was painfully reminded of another time and place. She murmured something in Russian, but he didn't ask her to clarify, and she didn't translate for him.

They stopped outside the office, the rest of the bureau all but dead thanks to it being technically after-hours. Tony waited outside the office door with Natasha and Rhodey (and Pepper and Happy) while Hill, Thor, and Bruce slipped in to see if everything was set up, and he considered the bouquet in his hands and said, "Honestly, I thought if I ever got married, I'd be the one wearing the tux and not the white dress."

"You could have worn a tux, I suppose," Natasha said, and Tony quietly shushed the voice in his head that trilled at wearing a dress. Instead, he went for bland and bored.

"Eh, I've got this—" He motioned over his figure. "I might as well show it off for as long as I can."

Rhodey raised an eyebrow like he didn't quite swallow what Tony was saying, but Natasha nodded and reached out to push a few stray hairs back into place, making sure not to knock the netting of the birdcage veil askew. "Well, if it's any consolation, you make a beautiful bride, Stark."

"Thanks. Not sure if Steve'll feel the same—"

"Are you kidding?" Rhodey said just as Natasha stepped back and said, "He will. Trust me."

" _Tony_ ," Pepper said from the phone, " _Steve finds you attractive. Trust me on this._ "

" _You make for a good-lookin' broad, ex-boss_ ," Happy helpfully supplied. Hill chose that moment to stick her head out and say, "Ready when you are."

Natasha looked at him and raised an eyebrow. "Not too late."

" _Don't give him any ideas!_ " Pepper cried from the phone, and Tony rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Think I'm good. But thanks."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself," she said and nodded at Maria that they'd be in presently. Hill nodded her understanding and went back into the room, leaving the door ajar, and Natasha went over and said, "Point of no return."

Tony motioned her in. "Just _go!_ "

She laughed and pushed in, holding the door open for Tony, who followed with Rhodey and the phone right behind him, and he suddenly realized how crazy this whole thing was when everyone turned to look at him—

Including Steve, who stood in front of the lectern and had been coerced into donning his old dress uniform — the double-breasted officer's tunic from the war with the ribbons and the collar pins and the brass buttons down the front and over each hip and breast pocket. They'd even gotten him to put his cap on and shine his shoes, and Tony thought that, if not for the relatively modern haircut, he was seeing Steve — _really_ seeing Steve — as everyone else would have in 1944.

He sure made for a hell of a sight.

Somebody whistled from the phone Rhodey was holding. Tony couldn't actually tell which one of them had done it. He took several long strides over to where Steve stood, Steve's eyes raking over his form, his mouth having a hard time staying closed, and as everyone took their places for the ceremony, Steve was finally able to utter, "You look amazing."

"Yeah? Don't look so bad there yourself, soldier."

Steve just swallowed, and after passing off the bouquet to Natasha, he and Steve joined hands, and the clerk began the ceremony.

As marriage ceremonies went, it was quick and painless if utilitarian in nature. Tony had always thought he'd throw a big catered affair if he were ever to get married — really just an excuse to have a big, huge, expensive bash that he could invite all his friends to — and maybe if things worked out the right way and Tony went back to being, well, the way he was, they could have a big affair sometime in the near future. As it was, they were stuck with the intimate little ceremony, which was nice, he supposed. It did what it was supposed to do, and it was nice that it was just Tony, Steve, and their friends…

And apparently all the city clerks on duty that day, who Hill later informed him had taken sworn oaths and signed non-disclosure agreements to prevent any of what had happened that day from leaking to the media. Tony really wasn't sure he trusted that, but whatever, nothing he could do about it now.

It was when the clerk had said that they could kiss that Tony felt something funny in his abdomen. Something that felt like a flutter. He pulled away from Steve and looked down at himself, and Steve sensed immediately that there was something amiss and said, "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Tony said and looked down at himself. "I feel funny."

Steve paled more than usual. "Funny how? What's wrong?"

"I don't know," he said and frowned. "I just felt a weird twinge down there. Like a flutter of some kind." He glanced back up and met Steve's concerned gaze. " _Steve?_ " he said, choked, because oh, god. Oh, god, what if— What if something happened? What if something was happening? What if he was having a miscarriage right then and there? Oh, god, what if that nutcase was _right?_ Was he dying? Was he about to die?

"It's OK," Steve said and put firm, solid hands on either of Tony's bare shoulders. "It's OK. It's probably—" He stopped short and considered something. "Wait, I read about this somewhere. What did you say it was? What it felt like, I mean?"

He swallowed and took a breath to calm the thrumming in his veins. Oh, god, he was dying. This was it. This was the end. At least he could say he had gotten to marry Steve. God, did he look fucking _good_ in that uniform.

"I don't know. Like a flutter of some kind. Sort of like a muscle twinge but not quite. Steve, what if it's—"

"It's _not_ ," Steve said with more fire and determination than Tony knew he felt. "It's— I think it's—"

He stopped short and glanced around at the gathered ensemble, and Tony watched as he swallowed and nodded then made his excuses to the clerks and the Avengers and took Tony by his elbow and led him out of the office and down the quiet and darkened hall to someplace where they could have privacy.

"I didn't want to say it in front of those clerks," he said by way of explanation.

"Say what?" Tony asked, gripping onto Steve's arms as though that could somehow keep anything bad from happening to him, the old wool of the uniform rough but somehow comforting under his hands because it was _Steve_ and _Steve's_ uniform and _Steve_ would make everything OK for him.

But Steve smiled a little and leaned in and whispered in his ear, "I'm pretty sure that's the baby moving, honey."

"Oh," he said before what that meant sunk in.

_Oh_.

~*~

Once it happened, he couldn't stop thinking about it or trying to feel it.

It was all he could concentrate on during the extremely late lunch or very early dinner (depending on how one looked at it) the others held in their honor at one of the more exclusive restaurants in the city, someone having footed the expense for a private dining room (and evidently the expense to pay off the wait staff as well; it was nice to know his hard-earned money was going to worthwhile endeavors). He couldn't even pay attention to the toasts or the conversations because he was too busy sitting there, his hand on his abdomen as he tried to feel that motion again — that strange fluttering that was equal parts foreign and comforting to him. He couldn't even appreciate how handsome Steve looked in his uniform (had he mention lately how fucking _good_ Steve looked in his uniform?), all of his concentration going to what was going on inside of him.

Steve seemed to be aware of this, turning to him at one point during the entrée and murmuring, "Are you OK?"

But Tony just looked at him — at the soft concern of his crystalline blue eyes, the part of his full lips, the way his shirt just seemed to...perfectly fit that gorgeous, firm torso he had — and, remembering exactly what had happened right before he'd felt that motion, said, "Kiss me."

Steve chuckled and said, "OK," before leaning in and capturing Tony's lips with his own. Somebody caught them, as he heard somebody say in the periphery, "Hey, you're not supposed to do that unless we do this—" and then there was the sound of flatware tapping against glass, which grew louder and shriller as more glasses were added to the cacophony of sound.

Tony ignored that, though, and focused on the kiss and what he could hopefully feel from it. It was relatively chaste for one of Steve's kisses, sweet and gentle with very little tongue, and Tony grabbed Steve's hand and put it against his abdomen, thinking maybe that would do it.

It didn't.

But Steve seemed to get what Tony was aiming to do, and he rubbed his hand gently over the small swell of Tony's abdomen — Tony feeling a twitch of desire in that area Steve was so damned good at pleasuring — and murmured, "Don't worry. It'll happen again."

"Yeah?" he muttered, surprising himself by the amount of desperate want he had to feel that again. He didn't know why. It wasn't something he should… He wasn't supposed to want this. "When?"

Steve shrugged, and Barton called out to them, "So, honeymoon?"

Steve blinked and exchanged a glance with Tony before he said, "We're supposed to get one of those?"

Tony shrugged at him and picked up his glass of water. "It is tradition," he said and took a sip.

"Wait," Wilson said, "you're not going on a honeymoon?"

When they both shrugged their response, Hill picked up her glass of whatever spirited beverage she'd gotten and said, "You _really_ decided all this at the last minute, didn't you?"

"Yeah, and it's a good thing we did," Tony said. "I almost died earlier."

"Tony, you didn't almost _die_ earlier," Steve muttered, but Rhodey turned concerned eyes on him and said, "What? When was this?"

Tony blinked at him, suddenly realizing that maybe that hadn't been the right thing to say. "OK, _maybe_ I didn't almost _die_. Maybe I just _thought_ I was dying."

"Why?" Natasha asked, a glass of something burgundy-colored in her hand.

He turned to her and said, "I— Nothing. Never mind. Inside joke between me and Steve."

"Cap know what one of those is?" Barton asked.

Steve shot a look at him and said, "Believe it or not, we had those back in my day, too."

"They invented inside jokes right after they developed fire," Bruce said, and Wilson clapped his back and said, "See, man? I knew you had it in you."

Steve just looked amongst his assembled friends and said, "You know, Thor's older than I am."

"Indeed," Thor said, happily shoveling grub into his mouth.

"Yeah," Barton said, "but we pick on him for being a foreigner. You're just old and set in your ways."

Steve opened his mouth to protest, but Thor frowned at Barton and said, "I did not know my otherworldness offended you so."

"Now you've done it," Natasha murmured to Barton, hiding her smile behind her glass, and Barton put a hand up to caution Thor against jumping to any misinformed conclusions.

"Wait, no, it doesn't _offend_ us. It's how we bond with you. We make fun of each other." He motioned to Bruce. "Dirty hippy." He motioned to Steve. "Old man." He motioned to Tony. "Spoiled, whiny brat."

"Hey!"

He motioned to Natasha. "Can kill you in her sleep."

"I take that as a compliment," Natasha said took a sip of what Tony assumed was wine. He motioned to Hill. "Cold and impersonal."

Hill just raised an eyebrow at him, and he motioned to Rhodey. "Actually thinks War Machine is cool."

"War Machine _is_ cool," Rhodey assured him, and Tony couldn't help telling the gang, "You might even say he _rox_ — with an 'X.'"

Rhodey just frowned and said a simple, "Why?" But there was the hint of a smile in his eyes, so Tony knew he wasn't really upset about the crack.

"No, you're right, sweet pea. War Machine is totally awesome. I mean, not as awesome as Iron Man, but still awesome. Mostly. I mean, nobody ever asks for a _War Machine_ story—"

"Happy does."

Tony 'humphed' then said, "Yeah, well, Happy even thinks _birdbrain_ here—" he jerked a thumb at Barton, "—deserves the title of 'superhero,' so I'm not sure, much as I adore him, I would use him to bolster my claim that people actually ask for War Machine stories."

Rhodey just shook his head at him, more out of disappointment than anything else, and Barton cleared his throat to draw the attention back to him and said, "Yeah, _anyway_ , if Mrs. Rogers could stop being catty for five seconds—"

" _Mrs. Rogers?_ Hey, if anything _he's_ 'Captain Stark.'"

"Captain Stark-Rogers _is_ a mouthful," Steve said with a sagely nod, but Tony patted his arm.

"Too late. It's that's our official and legal name now, though you're right. That _is_ going to be a pain in the ass to sign. Should have just gotten you to change your name to 'Stark.'"

Steve cocked a challenging eyebrow at him. "Or I could have gotten you to change yours to 'Rogers.'"

"'Steven Stark' sounds better than 'Tony Rogers.'"

"They both sound the same," Steve countered. "And in that case, the comparison should be between 'Steven Stark' and 'Anthony Rogers.'"

"The point remains. Your first name sounds better with my last name. Wait, is it too late to change?"

He went to pull his phone out to make a call to… _someone_ …but Steve put his hand on his wrist and said, "It's too late to change."

"Ugh," he muttered and rolled his eyes as he set his phone down. "Why did we hyphenate?"

"Because you said 'Stogers' and 'Roark' sounded awful."

"They _do_ sound awful! 'Stogers' sounds like 'stodgy,' and I am anything _but_. 'Roark' sounds like the kind of noise you'd make into a toilet after a weekend bender."

"Uh, they forgot we were even here, didn't they?" he heard Wilson say from somewhere.

"I'm actually kind of surprised you're surprised." Barton said. "They pull this shit at home. Why shouldn't they pull it here?"

"I don't know," Wilson said with a sigh. "I guess I just thought they would have grown out of it by now."

"They just got married. Give it six months. They honeymoon'll be over by then. Marriage kills the romance for _any_ relationship — even these two weirdos."

"Oh, is that so?" Steve said. "Well—" he turned to Tony, "—we don't want to waste a moment of that, now do we?"

"No, I guess— _eumph!_ "

He was stopped from saying anything more by Steve crashing his mouth against his, and when he dropped his jaw in surprise, Steve took that opportunity to slip his tongue in. He squeaked as Steve put his arms around him and pulled him into an embrace, tight and possessive, one hand splayed over his back while the other one cradled the back of his head, trapping him there, forcing him to take what Steve was giving him. His eyes slipped closed as he relaxed into it, Steve's initial bruising kiss turning languid and playful. Tony ran his hands from Steve's narrow waist up his midsection and then around to his back, feeling the hard, firm lines of muscle, and a giggly little voice reminded him that this was _his_ now. This was all his. This — this man and everything that went with him — belonged him to him, legally, free and clear. He belonged to Steve, maybe, but Steve also belonged to him. They belonged to each other.

The giggle in his mind worked its way into his throat, and Steve hummed and pulled back a little, lessening his hold on Tony but not completely breaking it as he said, maybe a little embarrassed, "I really wish you wouldn't do that when I'm trying to do this."

But Tony shook his head and said, "No, no, it's not you," and ran his hands up Steve's back until he could cup them over his broad shoulders. "It's not that. It's just— I was just thinking. You're mine. You belong to me. Legally, you actually belong to me now."

Steve arched an eyebrow. "Doesn't that work both ways?"

"Well, yeah, I gue— _ungmph!_ "

He again was cut short by Steve kissing him, and he relaxed once more, pressing his torso against Steve's, humming a little as Steve pushed into his mouth and dug his fingers into the exposed flesh of Tony's back.

Did this joint have a bathroom they could use for, like, five minutes? Five was probably good enough, right?

"You two are disgusting," Barton said from somewhere in the distance. "I want you to know that. I'm appalled by the fact that you subject us to this on such a regular basis."

Tony hummed a little again and broke the kiss enough to say, "My penthouse."

"Not in your precious penthouse right now, sweetcheeks."

Tony hummed again and made to go back to kissing Steve, but Steve pulled away and said, "He's right."

"OK," he said as Steve sat away from him and went back to poking at his dinner, "those are the two unsexiest words you have ever spoken. Barton is never right about anything."

"Are we putting money on that?" Barton asked, but when Tony just rolled his eyes and didn't even dignify his question with a response, he turned the conversation back to the original topic and said to Thor, "Anyway, before Romeo and Juliet started slobbering over each other, I was saying how we like to pick on each other as a bonding exercise."

Thor nodded. "I do understand the concept of poking fun at one's friends and allies in order to better secure the bonds of brotherhood—"

Barton put a hand up to quiet him. "Yeah, I wasn't done talking."

Thor closed his mouth, and he nodded and made a motion for Barton to continue. "As I was saying—"

"OK, you explain more American customs to Goldilocks," Tony said. "I'm gonna go back to making out with my sexy super soldier."

"Please don't," Bruce said, the grimace on his face audible in his tone.

Tony looked over his assembled friends and said, "Wait. Are you people seriously grossed out by it?"

"No," Natasha said and rubbed his shoulder. "We're not disgusted by you and Steve sucking face—"

"I don't think you should speak for the group on that," Barton said, and she rolled her eyes and waved him off.

"We're not disgusted," she reiterated. "We just like picking on you for it. It's actually kind of sweet."

"Yeah," Bruce agreed. "It's…comforting."

Tony sat upright. " _Comforting?_ " he snapped as though Bruce had just levied the highest of insults upon him. "What the hell does that mean?"

Bruce frowned and went to say something but nothing came out of his mouth, and Wilson nodded and put a hand to his shoulder and murmured, "I got this," to him then said, "I think what the doc is trying to say is that you and Cap, doing your thing, it's kinda like something we can count on, you know? Shit gets too real or fucked up, it's — it's like it's something—"

"Like having a home or going home. Like being able to go home," Natasha said, and Tony set surprised eyes on her before he looked among the others and said, "Yeah, we're not your parents."

Wilson shrugged. "I think that might actually be a good thing," he said but didn't elaborate. He didn't have to. Tony knew there were a lot of fucked-up childhoods sitting at the table with him. The fact that he was actually considered one of the 'stable' and 'reliable' adults really said something about how fucked up all of them still were to some degree.

"What I think everyone's trying to say," Hill said quietly and contemplatively, "is that for as much as we tease you about being cheesy or sweet or gross with each other, we all kind of rely on you to be that way now because it's something stable and something we can count on even when things aren't looking so great in the outside world."

Tony nodded, finding himself a little humbled by Hill's words and the implication of what they really meant, and, under the table, he reached for Steve's hand and clasped hold of it, Steve squeezing in response before Tony even could. Evidently, Steve understood the gravity of those words as well.

"Yeah," Barton said, "and now that you're married, I can call you 'Stony' and not feel stupid about it. I mean, I didn't feel stupid before, but now it's legally true."

" _Stony?_ " Steve said like he couldn't understand the significance of it.

"Yes," Tony said, "it's a portmanteau of 'Steve' and 'Tony.' Gossips like to do it a lot with celebrity couples. Not sure why it never caught on with us except with this clown—"

He motioned to Barton, who was sitting there looking contemplative — or as much as someone with a murder face could look contemplative — and said, "Think I could get the ball rolling on 'Superhusbands'? Like 'superhero' but with _husbands_."

Rhodey snorted a laugh into his drink, and Wilson frowned and said, "I don't know, man. Not sure that one's really fitting at the moment."

"Superspouses?"

"That sounds _awful_ ," Bruce said. "Just stick with 'Stony.'"

"Why?" Tony asked and glowered at him. "Why are you encouraging this stupidity?"

Bruce just shrugged, and Wilson turned to Barton and said, "You know, you never finished your explanation for Thor."

Thor frowned and said, "I do believe I understand the general—"

"Ah!" Barton said and put a hand up again. "Shh! Anyway, who'd I do?"

"No one with a pulse, that's for certain," Tony muttered.

"Yeah, real mature there, Preggers."

Tony just shot a flat look at him.

"Anyway, who's left?" He frowned and looked at everyone, pointing at each person as he silently mouthed what he'd said about each one then said, "Huh, it's my turn. OK, well, _some_ people accuse me of having a 'murder face.'" He used finger quotes on the phrase.

"You do," Tony said.

"That's just your opinion," he said then motioned to Wilson, and Wilson sat there and tilted his head at Barton, almost like he was interested in what Barton had to say. Barton sat there a moment, staring, blinking, his mouth opening and closing a few times before Wilson said a bit smugly, "You got nothing on me, man. I am too cool for school."

Barton snapped his fingers and pointed like it had suddenly occurred to him. "Dork. You're a dork."

But Wilson just smiled a little and shook his head and murmured to himself, "You got nothing," as he picked up his drink and took a gulp.

The wait staff came into the room after that and began to bus their dishes, and Tony didn't miss the lingering looks of one of the waiters, almost like she was trying to figure out just what was going on and what she was seeing. Her coworker unceremoniously elbowed her and nodded at her to get back to work, and Tony quickly averted his gaze when it seemed the inquisitive one was about to look in his direction.

Yeah, paid to shut their mouths or not, this wasn't going to stay quiet for very long.

Once the table was cleared, the wait staff brought out plates and forks and the rejected wedding cake Hill had bought for them the day before, and Steve once again reminded them that they _really_ didn't have to do this for them.

Tony was too busy gawking and wondering how anyone could reject a cake that looked like _that_.

He moved aside to let the staff set it on the table in front of him and Steve, marveling at the design of it. It was tiered, three square layers atop each other, the icing or whatever that stuff was called an almost royal purple color with what looked like hand-crafted marzipan calla lilies placed around it and tiny, decorative silver balls stuck with precise measurement along the intricately- decorated sides of each layer. Maybe it wasn't what Tony would have ever picked for himself, but it still was a pretty nice-looking cake.

"Seriously," Steve said after the staff had left them alone again, "you didn't have to do this. We didn't need—"

"Shut up and cut the cake," Barton said and handed a knife over to him.

He sighed and stood up, and he surveyed the cake like he might a battlefield, looking for some sort of tactical advantage, and he poised the knife to cut into the top layer just as Natasha said, "Nope, not that one! You have to save that one."

"What for?" Tony asked before Steve could.

"Supposed to stick it in the freezer and have it on your first anniversary," Barton replied.

Tony went to say that was a stupid tradition (and hello, freezer burn!) but Steve just sighed and said, "Fine," and poised the knife to cut into the bottom layer. He shot a pointed look at Natasha and said, "Is this OK?"

She just shrugged, and when Steve made to make the first cut, she said, "Oh, no, together," and nudged Tony. "Come on. This has to be as sickeningly sweet as possible."

"I don't know why you people are encouraging this," Tony said but stood up. "You make fun of us when we do stuff like this."

"Yeah," Wilson said, holding up his phone like he was either taking pictures or recording, "but you're supposed to do this sort of shit at weddings."

Tony exchanged a look with Steve, who maneuvered so that Tony could get in on the cake- cutting, and Tony sighed and put his hand atop Steve's where he had a hold of the knife and said, "Will this suffice?"

"Gripe all you want," Barton, who also had his phone out, said. "You know deep down you're loving this."

He went to deny the charge but then decided it wasn't worth it to argue with him, and together, he and Steve cut into the cake that had been intended for someone else, the others 'aww'ing at the gesture and snapping pictures.

"I don't ever, ever want to hear you people piss and moan about what we do ever again. You hear me?" he said as he and Steve made the second cut together.

"Yeah, don't count on it," Barton said.

And then together, because that's what they did, they set the slice of cake down on a plate, and Steve held it up and said, "Who wants the first piece?"

"Uh, traditionally, I think we get that," Tony said then shot a pointed look at the rest of the group. "I'm sure you wouldn't want to see us _feed_ each other."

"Nah," Wilson said, still watching things through his phone, "we'll allow it this time. We'll need it for the highlight reel for your fiftieth."

"Yeah?" he said and, he and Steve each holding the plate, he broke off a small piece of the slice with his fingers and added, "What makes you think we'll be socializing with any of you losers in fifty years? Sugar bear doesn't count." He nodded at Rhodey. "He's never getting rid of me."

"'Cause we're your family, Stark," Barton said. "Oh, I'm sorry. _Mrs. Rogers_."

Tony nodded at Barton. "Steve, hit him."

Steve just made a face and nodded at the cake. "Come on," he said and broke off his own small portion. "Let's do this so they leave us alone."

"How romantic," he muttered. "I'm such a lucky fella."

Steve just quirked his lips and shoved the bite of cake into Tony's mouth, his fingers brushing against Tony's lips. Tony took the portion on his tongue and closed his lips over Steve's fingertips to get every last crumb and morsel before he fed Steve his, and Steve took Tony's fingers in his mouth and gently sucked off every bit of crumb and icing and sugar and grease that had collected.

Really, it was just an excuse to suck on each other's fingers in a somewhat sultry manner. It was actually a pretty damned good cake, but yeah, the entire thing — at least on Tony's end of it — was to provocatively suck Steve's fingers in front of their friends.

Three minutes. Steve could probably get him off in three minutes. They had a bathroom in this place, right?

"You know," Barton mused, "with most couples, it's, _Aw, they're feeding each other_. With these two it's more like, _Oh, god, they're_ feeding _each other now_."

"Would you prefer them trying to kill each other?" Natasha asked.

"No," Barton said after a moment. "Just saying."

"Yeah, and didn't you people _just_ establish that you kind of _like_ me and Steve being like this?"

" _I_ never said that," Barton muttered.

Tony glanced at Barton a moment before he stuck his finger into the cake and grabbed a dollop of filling and wiped it on Steve's nose. Steve, adorably, crossed his eyes trying to look at the glob of white sugary glop that was now covering the tip of his nose, and Tony grinned and leaned forward, licking it off and making an 'mmm' sound as he did so.

"Now you're just being gross," Barton said.

Steve got stuck slicing after that, handing out portions to everyone, including Bruce, who was saying something about 'refined sugars' but took the slice that was offered to him anyway and gladly shoved it down his gullet. Honestly, Tony was too busy stuffing his face to really care. It was a good cake, honestly, tasting as good as it looked, and Tony was tempted to contact the bakery and ask them for the contact information for the woman that had deemed it not good enough for her own wedding. He figured, at the least, she deserved a 'thank you' of some kind for being such a hard-to-please pain-in-the-ass.

He could only imagine the look of surprise on her face when she realized her rejected cake had gone to Captain America and Iron Man. It would be doubly delightful if she was one of those reactionaries that detested the very idea of Captain America being in a relationship with Iron _Man_.

It was when Steve was finally able to sit down and enjoy his second slice of cake when Tony felt it again — the fluttering — and he gasped and dropped his fork and then, without preamble, grabbed Steve's hand and pressed it against his lower abdomen.

"There!" he cried, startling the others out of their assorted conversations. "There. You feel it?"

He watched the movements of Steve's face, from the confusion that turned to interest and then finally understanding. Steve met his gaze, and his mouth fell open a little before he closed it and swallowed and said an awestruck, "Yeah, I do."

Their eyes did a dance together, brown locking in with blue, and Steve flexed his fingers a little possessively over Tony's abdomen before he choked out a sort of laugh and broke the gaze to look down at where his hand lay.

" _Shit_ ," he said with a laugh, almost like something had suddenly clicked for him — like maybe this finally made it _real_ for him.

And then, from his other side, Natasha's hand slid over his abdomen, pushing Steve's hand out of the way as she tried to feel the movement as well.

" _Oh, my god,_ " she breathed out, and Tony turned to meet her gaze. Her lips quirked into a little smile, and she rubbed his abdomen a little and said, "Congratulations, Stark. It's a baby."

He smiled back in teary-eyed gratitude at her while Steve reached out and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He ~~purred a little~~ leaned into Steve's side, and the fluttering subsided again just as Rhodey asked, "You going to let us all get in on that or are you playing favorites?"

"Sorry, honey bun," Tony said with a sigh, "but it seems to have stopped for the time being. I promise I'll let you know if it happens again, though."

~*~

It didn't — not that afternoon anyway — but that didn't meant he stopped _trying_ to feel it or concentrating on it or trying to figure out if there was some way to trigger it. He didn't know why he was so obsessed with it. Maybe because this finally, well and truly, made it real. Because before this, yeah, he _knew_ it, but he didn't _feel_ it. He had to assume it, keep telling himself that yeah, he was growing a life inside of him, and someday it would be able to live and thrive on its own, but until that time, it was just an idea, an assumption, something he took for granted existed because he'd been told it existed and nothing else.

But now. _Now_.

Tony stood in front of the dresser mirror, stripped of his dress and standing in nothing but his lacy white undergarments, facing front then turning to the side to look at the small-but-growing bump of his abdomen.

"There's a life in here, Steve, an actual living, breathing — well, maybe not yet, technically — but an actual living _life_."

"You're just figuring that out now?" Steve said and side-eyed him from the where he lay on the bed reading something on his tablet.

"No," he murmured and gave the bump some consideration. He ran a hand over it, inquisitive and yet protective, the flash of his diamond and sapphire wedding band catching in the light, and turned to Steve. "I just can't believe— I mean, this is really happening."

"I can't believe Clint caught the bouquet," Steve muttered but didn't look up from the tablet, and Tony snorted a laugh.

"Well," he said and rubbed his hand over the small swell some more, "now you know those traditions are bullshit. Who in their right mind would marry Barton? Wait, I just answered my own question. _No one_ in their 'right mind' would marry Barton."

"They say rain on your wedding day is good luck," Steve said and continued to read over his tablet.

"Yeah, and we had a fucking downpour. Clearly that means we're in for a lifetime of bliss," Tony said and turned back to the mirror to look at his profile again. He stood a little straighter, trying to see if that made a difference and made the swell either more or less noticeable, and he considered what that swell was, what that swell meant, what was growing beneath that swell, and said, "You know they used to call me the Merchant of Death."

He glanced over to Steve in time to see him look up at him from his tablet. "I know," he said, sounding none-too-pleased by the name.

Tony put his other hand up to match, ran both hands from his abdomen up to his breasts and then back again, and went over and climbed atop Steve, straddling him at his waist.

"No, you don't understand," he said, and Steve set the tablet on the nightstand and folded his hands behind his head to gaze up at Tony. "I… For a long time, I was a bringer of death. I made weapons that killed people. I thought I was doing it for the right reasons. I was a military contractor. I built things that I thought were protecting our guys out there doing the fighting — fighting I couldn't be bothered with. I thought it was someone else's responsibility. But I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn't realize… I saw men and women killed by the very weapons I had designed to protect them. I have so much blood on my hands, and I thought…if I got out of the weapons business, it would be enough. Then I thought if I went out as Iron Man for a while, it would be enough. Then I thought if I was an Avenger, it would be enough. I'm never going to make up for all that blood. Nothing I do can ever bring those people back to life."

Steve frowned. "Tony, what are you getting at?"

Tony put a hand down to his abdomen. "That it almost seems… _wrong_ …that I should be able to create life like this. Not the whole me being a guy-turned-into-a-woman thing. That I should be able to bring a life into the world. I don't know. I keep trying to wrap my head around it, but it doesn't make sense in my mind."

Steve shrugged, adjusting himself some against the pillows, hands still clasped behind his head. "Maybe that's the point? Maybe that's the great irony in all this? Tony Stark doesn't just take life, he creates it as well. It's not the first time you've created life, you know."

He made a face. "Yeah, uh, pretty sure it is."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, pretty sure this is the first time I've ever gotten pregnant."

"I don't mean just that. I mean what about JARVIS? What about DUM-E and poor U?

 "DUM-E still looks for him, you know."

"I know. I'm sorry you couldn't save him. But…aren't they kind of like your children? You made them. They're imbued with your personality and your intelligence and your wisdom."

"Yeah, pretty sure DUM-E missed out on the 'intelligence' part."

Steve just smiled at him, knowing full-well that he was full of shit. "DUM-E is a devious little thing that's always looking for a way to cut the wire — like someone else I know."

"You? Which would be…pretty weird considering you were kind of a Capsicle when I built him — unless there's something to the whole 'bondmate' theory and your consciousness was somehow reaching through the ether to inspire me."

"I was talking about you, but your theory sounds a lot more romantic."

"Stupid, you mean."

Steve shrugged. "Whichever. I'm just saying it's not as…foreign a concept as you think it might be. I almost think it's kind of fitting. Out of all of us here, you're the creator. You're the one that makes things, that creates and builds and breathes life into things." He pulled a hand from behind his head and reached out to rub Tony's small belly. "Why shouldn't this be part of it?"

"So, the Merchant of Death is actually the Giver of Life?"

"In a way, yeah, I guess so."

He rolled his eyes. "You're such a sap. Why do I even bother talking to you?"

Steve just grinned. "Because you secretly love it, even if you'd rather die than admit it."

"Ugh, I'm starting to rethink my life choices," he muttered as Steve brought his other hand around and rested both on either of Tony's hips and began to toy with the straps that connected the bustier to the thigh-high stockings he wore. "Marrying nonagenarians is bad for my health, no matter how fucking hot they look in their service uniforms. I did tell you how fucking _hot_ you looked in that uniform, didn't I?"

Steve just smiled then said, "I think you need to go to an obstetrician."

Tony startled back as though burned. "Excuse me?"

Steve rubbed his hands lightly over Tony's hips and thighs, kneading the tips of his fingers into the lace-covered flesh. "You can't just keep asking JARVIS to run scans for you, and you can't keep bothering Bruce. You need to go to someone that has experience with this sort of thing."

He folded his arms but remained straddled over Steve's waist. "Yeah, _pretty_ sure there's _no one_ out there with experience in this sort of thing."

Steve sighed a little and said, "Tony, I know you don't want to hear it, but you're pregnant. And neither one of us has any…experience…with that. I just… I want to make sure you're OK. I want to make sure everything's progressing as it should be. I don't need you…clocking out early."

Tony rolled his eyes. "I'm fine, Steve. I think I'd be the first to know if I wasn't." Steve nodded toward his abdomen. "You didn't know what the fluttering was."

"I thought it was a muscle spasm—"

"You didn't think it was a 'muscle spasm,'" Steve murmured, but Tony ignored him.

"And how do _you_ even know all this?"

Steve motioned to the tablet on the nightstand. "Been doing some reading. It's called 'quickening,' that fluttering you felt." He grabbed his tablet and turned the display back on, and he swiped a few times before he added, "It's not the first time the fetus moves, it's just when you begin to feel it. It's really just involuntary movements at this point in time, but they describe all sorts of ways the fetus moves at this point — grabbing its feet, sucking its fingers—"

"Please stop talking," Tony said and slid off Steve's waist to sit beside him. "I really don't want to think about it."

Steve just side-eyed him.

"OK, I go back-and-forth with being able to deal with this. Reminding me of what's really going on? Surefire way to get me to freak out. There's something growing inside me, Steve, something I have to let grow until it can survive outside of my body because it's completely dependent upon my body for its very existence. And I'm kind of dependent upon it for _my_ existence." He groaned and slumped some. "Fuck, how is this my life?"

Steve was focused on whatever he was reading on his tablet. "I don't know, honey. It just is."

"Are you even listening to me?"

"Uh huh."

"Hydra agents are scaling the building."

"OK."

"Hulk's having a meltdown in the lab."

"Yep."

"I'm leaving you for Thor."

"That's nice."

Tony grabbed a pillow and thwacked Steve with it. "You're not even paying attention to me!"

But Steve, that bastard, just laughed, and he grabbed one of the hands Tony swatted at him and pulled it to his mouth and kissed it.

"I hang onto your every word." He let go and went back to the tablet. "I really think you need to read some of this stuff, though."

"Haven't you heard? Ignorance is bliss."

"Not in this situation it's not. I think it would be better for you to understand what's going on and what to expect." Steve shot him a knowing look. "Pretending it's not happening isn't going to make it go away, you know."

"You have your ways of dealing with this, and I have mine."

" _Tony_ —"

" _Ste-eve_ ," he said, whining the name, "It's our wedding night. I am sitting next to you in lacy lingerie. Why do we have to talk about this? This is disturbingly unsexy."

Steve snorted a laugh. "You're fine. All I have to do is run one hand up the inside of your thigh, and you'll be good to go."

He glared at him. "I find it highly offensive that you seem to think I'm so easy that all you have to do is put a finger on me and I'll want to hop on your dick like it's the last—" He glanced at the tablet. "Are you reading about _breastfeeding?_ "

"Yeah."

" _Why?_ "

"It's amazing how much information is out there nowadays. Back in my day, you had to find this stuff out on the street, and even then, I mean, _no one_ would talk about breastfeeding. Even just pregnancy in general. I don't even think most expectant mothers knew what was going on. And fathers?" He scoffed then glanced at Tony. "You know they let them into delivery rooms now?"

"And?"

Steve went back to reading over the tablet. "It's amazing. It was… I guess it was considered a 'woman thing.' Fathers weren't expected to know about this. They weren't expected to be a part of it. A father's responsibility was relegated to getting his wife to the hospital and passing out cigars in the waiting room. Now, I mean—" He swiped his finger over the tablet to scroll down the webpage. "They're right alongside the whole time now." He stopped swiping and frowned, a small crease forming between his brows.

"What?" Tony asked but dared not look at what he was reading. He didn't want to know.

"You know there's something called 'erotic lactation'?"

Tony had a feeling he knew what that was without needing the precise explanation. "What the hell are you reading?"

"Wikipedia."

"That's your first problem. You know that, right?"

He laughed. "Trust me. I'm not getting all my information from Wikipedia. I already got that lecture from Bruce. But it's a good starting point."

"Do _not_ Google that, you hear me?"

Steve shut the tablet off and set it on the nightstand again, and he reached out and snagged an arm around Tony's waist to pull him against him. Tony went with it, cuddling up against Steve, and Steve brushed light fingertips over his body as he said, "Please. Just…go to an obstetrician? I've been talking about it with Bruce, and he agrees with me—"

Tony pulled back. "Wait, you were talking to Bruce about me? What, you can't come to me and—"

Steve rolled his eyes. " _Bruce_ asked _me_ about it because he's sick of you going to him about this stuff and he thinks you need to go to an actual obstetrician about it."

Tony scoffed. "What for? JARVIS can monitor all my vital signs—"

" _Tony_ —"

" _Steve_ , why should I go to some quack that couldn't even begin to understand the predicament I'm in—"

"They don't have to know the exact circumstances, you know. Physically, you are not a man, Tony. I know this is scary for you, but _physically_ , you're a woman. No one's going to suspect anything untoward about it."

"Really? Yeah, so when I hand over my Blue Cross card with the name 'Anthony Stark'—"

"Then don't use your insurance card. What do you even need insurance for, anyway? Can't you write a check for all your medical bills?"

He counted off on his fingers. "One, because the government says I need insurance. Two, because insurance companies are greedy sons-of-bitch-assholes and if I have to have insurance, then I'm going to take them for everything they're willing to give me. And three, because our group is so small they wouldn't give us even a decent plan unless I did join. Don't ask, I don't understand. I don't write these damned polices."

Steve just pushed his head back against the pillow. " _Tony_ ," he muttered with an annoyed groan.

"Explain it to me, Steve. Explain how I'm even supposed to do this."

Steve picked his head up again and raised an eyebrow. "Anthony Stark or Natasha Carbonell?"

"You know there's no such person, right?"

He shrugged. "There may just have to be. What about when it comes time to have the baby, huh? You going to make Bruce deliver it?"

"Yeah, and risk the Hulk joining in on the festivities — not the mention giving Bruce a front-row view to, uh…" Steve just raised an eyebrow, and Tony raised one to match and said, "You know, you could do it."

"Do what?"

"Deliver the kid."

"Tony, I don't know the first thing about—"

"But you're Captain America! You're the most trustworthy person on the _planet!_ Plus, you've already seen and fondled everything there is to see and fondle down there. If I can't trust you—"

Steve closed his eyes. "Tony, _please_ go to a real doctor!"

Tony sighed. "Fine."

Steve opened one eye to look at him. "Really?"

He nodded. "Sure."

Steve opened both eyes and made a face. "What's the catch?"

"Oh?" Tony shrugged and walked his fingers over Steve's firm abdomen. "Not a catch. Just a promise."

"That's better described as a 'catch.' What's the 'catch,' Tony?"

He smiled and rubbed his hand over Steve's chest, tracing the contours of his pecs and thumbing his nipples through his shirt. "You have to come with me."

Steve groaned and rolled his eyes, and Tony shrugged.

"Well, if you'd rather not go, then I guess—"

" _Fine_."

Tony sobered, his hand stilled over the hard lines of Steve's abdomen. "Wait, what?"

But Steve was looking at him in that devious way that he got when he was calling Tony's bluff. "You'll go to a real medical doctor if I go with you? Fine, I'll go with you."

He frowned and shook his head. "No, Steve, I couldn't ask you to—"

"No, it's fine. _Natasha_ and I are friends, aren't we? And what better way could I support my good friend _Natasha_ than by going to her doctor's exams with her?"

Tony raised an eyebrow. "You know what they'll say about that, right? That it's yours."

"Well, they won't be wrong."

" _Ste-eve!_ "

He shook his head. "Nope, you brought this one on yourself. You said you'd go if I went with you, and I agreed to go with you, so—"

He sat up some and reached out to grab his phone, and Tony watched over his shoulder as he thumbed through the contacts.

"What are you doing?"

"Bruce gave me the name of someone he recommends."

"How would Bruce even know anyone in that field?"

Steve glanced at him then pulled up the contact name. "You'd trust Bruce to examine you, but you don't trust him to recommend someone to you?"

"I didn't say that. I'm just wondering how he would even know."

"Conventions?"

Tony rolled his eyes as Steve then began to pull up the name and information on his tablet. "Look at you switching from one piece of tech to another."

"Guess you can teach an old dog new tricks, huh? Supposedly it's tough to get an appointment with her, but Bruce said to just tell them that he recommended her, and we should be good."

"You're not calling now, are you?"

"Yeah," Steve said and shot him an amused look, "I'm calling to book a doctor's appointment at eleven-thirty at night. We'll call in the morning."

Tony just nodded and patted his arm. "OK, babe. You do that. Now—"

He swung a leg over Steve's abdomen to straddle him once more, and he reached out and took the phone and the tablet out of his hands. He set them on the table beside the bed then ran firm, possessive hands up the hard lines of Steve's abdomen.

" _You_ are going to do your husbandly duty that is expected of every groom on the wedding night and fuck me silly, understand?"

Steve just took a breath and let it out, fingers tripping at the little blue garter Tony wore on his right thigh before he pulled his hand back and let at the bare flesh part of Tony's thigh with a firm slap. Tony jolted a bit at the hit them hummed a little and all but purred, "Is that the way we're doing it tonight?"

Steve just met his gaze, lazy, but with a fierce hunger shining in his blue depths. He hooked a finger around the lacy band of cloth that formed the crotch of Tony's underwear, pushing his knuckle in just the slightest to rub against Tony's clit, and said, his voice low and a little gravelly, "These come off. Everything else stays on."

Tony did purr at the feel of Steve's knuckle rubbing against his clit — though he'd deny it was 'purr' until he was blue in the face — and he ran his hands up to Steve's shoulders and braced himself there as he said, "You're the boss," making sure to give Steve an adequate view of his cleavage. Steve's gaze zeroed in right where Tony wanted it to before he got up, standing to wiggle out of the lace panties, resorting to having to unhook then re-hook the garters, before he climbed back on top of Steve, who had already deposed himself of his clothing.

Hands braced on Steve's firm biceps, he canted his hips against Steve's, and Steve reached a hand out and rubbed his finger against the slight engorgement of Tony's clit. He gasped, not meaning to, and Steve grinned and rubbed his finger a little harder and said, "One of these days, I'm going to take you apart piece by piece until you're nothing but a mess of nerves begging for me to just let you come already."

Tony hitched in a breath as Steve slid his finger down from his clit to his vagina and pushed in without so much as a how-do-you-do.

"But not tonight."

~*~

The next morning, Steve worked those bashful, crystalline-blue irises, and Tony, in too much of a good mood from the things Steve had done to him the night before, found himself calling up an obstetrician for the first — and what he hoped would be _only_ — time in his life.


	12. Chapter 12

* * *

Steve was not averse to disguises. In fact, he seemed to enjoy them.

But dear god, could he be obvious about them.

It didn't matter that he'd dropped Bruce's name. They couldn't fit him in at the doctor's for over a week. So, Tony used this delay wisely and attempted to convince Steve through demonstration that his medical needs could easily be served by both Bruce and JARVIS.

Unfortunately, Bruce didn't want to play along and instead sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as he said, " _Go_ to the doctor, Tony!"

"Uh, but you _are_ a doctor," Tony reminded him.

But Bruce just stared at him and said under no uncertain terms, "I don't want to be your doctor."

Well, Bruce had probably intended them to be certain, but Tony was nothing if not a master at twisting other people's words around to suit his needs.

"You _actually_ don't want to or you're just saying that because you think you shouldn't because it might make things weird between us?"

"I don't want to be your doctor, Tony!" he cried, spreading his arms out wide in some misguided belief that it would drive his point home harder. "I do _not_ want to be your doctor! I am not an obstetrician. I am not a gynecologist. _Yeah_ , I could probably get you through the rest of this, but I don't want to, Tony. I don't want to do it. I don't want to be responsible for that. I don't want to deal with that. You know what I want? I want you to go to someone that deals with this on a regular basis. I want you to go to someone that knows what to look for. I want you to go to an _actual_ obstetrician that might be able to catch something quicker than I would because they deal with it more."

Bruce was actually panting by the end of his rant, though Tony didn't spy any green tingeing his irises, so he was safe in figuring Bruce hadn't gotten himself _that_ worked up. And knowing Bruce hadn't gotten himself _that_ worked up, he just nodded and said, "So…you'll think about it?"

Bruce groaned and threw his arms up and said to no one, "Why do I even bother?"

Before Tony could say anything to that, Steve said from behind him, " _Tony_ ," and Tony whirled and turned to face him and cried out, " _Goddamn it, Steve!_ " He pointed a finger at him. "Didn't I tell you to stay upstairs?"

But Steve just shot him a pointed and knowing look and said, "Tony, if Bruce doesn't want to—"

"He didn't actually _say_ —"

"I did say," Bruce muttered from his workstation. "I said those exact words. You didn't listen to me, but I said them."

Steve folded his arms, planting his feet at parade rest and tilting his head forward some as though he was glaring at Tony over a pair of non-existent glasses. He didn't say a word, but he didn't have to. Tony knew exactly what the intent was, and he took a breath and let it out and glanced away from Steve's guilt-inducing glare.

" _Tony_ ," he said again, and Tony looked between Steve and Bruce a few times before he said, "Look, I don't think either one of you _gets it_. _This?_ " He motioned over his body. "Not something I ever thought would happen to me, and I'm sorry if maybe I'm just a little, I don't know, _uncomfortable_ about the whole thing and would rather get checked out by someone I _trust_ as opposed to an actual, total stranger that has _no business_ knowing my business. OK? So, it's easy for you two to stand there and make judgments and tell me what you want me to do—" he let out a nervous laugh, "—and, again, I have no say in anything. I have no choice. I'm a fucking pawn for _you_ , for the _universe_ and crazy space cases that have ridiculous amounts of power they are completely irresponsible with— _Goddamn it, Steve! Don't fucking touch me!_ "

Steve winced away from Tony, pulling his hands back from where he'd tried to place them on his shoulders as an act of comfort, and Tony felt like an ass for the words the moment they left his mouth, but fucking hell, they _didn't_ understand. Any of them. Yeah, sure, Barton got to make fun of him and Hill and Natasha got to dress him like a goddamned doll and Steve got to fuck him in new and interesting ways, but none of them understood what this was _actually_ like and what it was like to _actually_ go through it and be _forced_ to go through it. Every time he thought he came just a little bit closer to accepting what had happened and what was happening to him, it felt like he fell five steps back right after that.

Because, again, if he accepted what had been done to him and what was happening to him, just _what_ did that say for who he really was?

Bruce had stepped away from his workstation and was now standing beside Steve, both of them staring at him with worried looks of concern. Tony took a breath and glanced away from the weight of their gazes, intending to apologize for his outburst but finding he just…didn't want to. Because on some level he meant it. He meant all of it. And maybe he wanted them to know that.

They stood there in Bruce's lab for several quiet moments before Bruce seemed to sum up the courage to speak.

"Tony," he said, his voice soft and gentle to avoid spooking him, "we're not… We're not trying to force you to do something you don't want to do."

Tony scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"I know it seems like that, it's just… We care about you. We're concerned about you. I'm not trained for this sort of thing. Sure, I could bullshit my way through it, but I'm not trained for it, and I don't think Steve wants someone that's just going to bullshit their way through taking care of you. Not for something like this. Not for something that's _literally_ a matter of life and death for you. Look, I've known Doctor Ganford a long time. I trust her. She's very discreet, and she's very good. If I didn't know anyone that I trusted, yeah, I would bullshit my way through with you and hope for the best, but I trust her, Tony. She'll be good for you. She'll make sure everything's the way it should be and she won't run to the press with it."

"What about her staff?" Steve asked, and Bruce hedged and scratched the back of his head.

"Well, I can't speak for them. You booked it under an assumed name, right?"

"Yeah."

Bruce made a face and said, "Honestly, Steve, it might be better if you didn't go."

Tony's jaw dropped. "Yeah, no, _not_ going to someplace like that by myself! Are you kidding? No, the only reason I agreed to this stupid thing was because Steve said he would go with me. If Steve's not going with me, I'm not going. Period."

He stood there and folded his arms and glared at them, daring them to make him try to reconsider his decision.

But Steve, that beautiful idiot, just shrugged and said, "We could wear disguises."

Honestly, Tony had known they couldn't just stroll into the doctor's office as they were. Even if he'd given the fake name of 'Natasha Carbonell,' Steve was easily recognizable now, and strolling into an ob/gyn's with the attractive mystery brunette was a surefire way of pinging the gossips' radars and having their candids splashed all over the media.

There were already rumblings about what they'd done down on Worth Street. Well, not that so much as when they'd gone out for lunch/dinner afterwards. Linner? Dunch? What was that called? Anyway, there were already rumblings about that — someone that 'looked like' Captain America attending something that 'looked a lot like' a small wedding reception at one of the more upscale restaurants with 'someone that looked like' that mystery brunette he'd been seen out with previously.

Actually, Tony was not all that opposed to people finding out — well, sort of. Maybe he wasn't too thrilled at the idea of people finding out that Tony Stark had been turned into a woman, but a few news cycles dedicated to the uproar over Captain America marrying someone that sure didn't _look_ like Tony Stark (or what they thought Tony Stark to look like)? Yeah, that might be kind of fun to watch.

But Steve, noble and just Steve, was bound and determined not to have either 'Tony Stark' _or_ 'Natasha Carbonell' dragged through the mud by the vultures.

"It wouldn't be me they'd attack," he said, sounding almost bitter at the fact. "It would be you — _both_ of you. Natasha Carbonell and Tony Stark. They'd attack both of you. Call 'Natasha' every sexist and derogatory name in the book. Drag up every single sordid thing Tony Stark ever did in the past. I'm not letting them do that, and I'm especially _not_ letting them call anything into question about that baby."

He motioned to Tony's abdomen at that, and Tony, for a brief and fleeting moment, wondered how dangerous it would be if word got out he was preg... _ugh_ , _pregnant_ with the child of a super soldier. There was no guarantee that this child would be in any way affected by the serum, but on the off-chance that he was…

Yeah, maybe not something Tony wanted to think about.

So, he didn't let himself think about it, and instead he debased himself to doing as he knew he'd have to do (even if he gave Steve the credit for it) and disguising his appearance to throw the dogs off the scent. Natasha let Tony borrow a long, blonde wig she had on hand, and for what he promised himself would be the one and only time in his life, he even dressed himself in an ensemble that _may_ have been purchased from the maternity section of a store — picked out online and shipped discreetly to the Tower by JARVIS, of course. The blonde hair was a nice change, he thought, the color pretty close to Steve's, though it did clash a bit with his dark eyebrows. He combed the bangs down a bit in a futile attempt to hide the disparity in color and thought that he wasn't _unattractive_ as a blonde, though he still preferred himself with dark hair.

To be fair, he'd lived forty-odd years of his life as a brunette (excepting one…questionable instance in his younger days), so maybe he was just used to that more?

The outfit was actually pretty tasteful and chic, he thought. Stylish — not like those garish outfits he'd seen in movies or TV shows. Understated. Sophisticated. He had to admit, he wasn't actually embarrassed to be seen in public looking like this, and what's more, he'd even picked it out himself. Natasha and Hill and Pepper would be proud. Steve, though…

Steve came down the steps that early afternoon of the appointment looking like he'd just come back from a frat boy beer kegger, backwards ball cap, baggy jeans, college hoodie (MIT, of course), those stupid horn-rimmed glasses, and goofy smile as he laughed and said, "What?" to Tony's jaw-dropped horror and mortification.

"Yeah, you're not going outside of this _room_ looking like that. Who the hell told you to dress like that? Wilson has more sense than that, so it must have been that asshole Barton."

Steve just laughed and said, "What?" as he looked down at himself. "You don't think it's good enough? I picked it out myself."

"I think I'm starting to rethink if I really want you as the father of my child."

"Oh, come on, Nattie—"

Tony winced away. "I'm sorry. _What_ did you call me?"

Steve laughed a little. "Nattie?" he said, sounding a little unsure of something.

Tony hummed in thought then said, "Yeah, call me that again, and you're sleeping on the couch."

"Well, I need something other than 'Nat' or 'Tasha' to call you." He reached out and took hold of Tony's hand and pulled him close, and as awful a picture Steve made at the moment, Tony still put his arms around Steve's waist as Steve put his arms around him. "Makes it sound like I'm talking about our other Natasha. Nata? Natalie?"

"Yeah, you know _our_ Natasha has already gone by 'Natalie,' right?"

"Not to us, or not recently, anyway. Could always go with 'Nate.'"

Tony made a face. "Eh, not really feeling the 'Nate,' and, well…" He grimaced a little, hesitating before he said, "I don't know, maybe I'd like… Maybe I wouldn't be _against_ something more…I don't know, something more _feminine_."

"Really?" Steve asked, sounding surprised as he pulled away to better look at him.

He shrugged but wouldn't meet Steve's eye. "Let's just say this hasn't been the…worst… experience I've ever gone through. I mean, questionable ethics of how it actually happened aside, it's actually kind of, I don't know, _fun_ , I guess I'd say."

"So…" Steve said, drawing out his statement like he wanted to make sure he got the words right, "you're enjoying being a woman?"

"Kind of. I mean, not that I want to stay this way forever, but…" He made a face again, flattening his mouth and continuing to avoid Steve's gaze as he folded his arms, resting them over the decorative little ribbon of material that sat just under his breasts. "I don't know," he muttered. "I'm not going to stay this way _forever_. I know that. I just… I figure why not enjoy the hell out of it for now? Not like I have a fucking _choice_ in the matter."

Steve stood there and nodded before he reached out and snagged a gentle hold of Tony's left hand. Tony let him, and he brought the hand up to his lips and kissed the diamond and sapphire ring that sat on his finger. "How 'bout 'Natalie,' then?" he said, going past Tony's lament about his lack of choice and pulling the hand away from his mouth. "It's feminine, right? No one calls Nat that. Or how 'bout even 'Antonia'?"

"Ugh," he said and let Steve pull him back into an embrace. "Sounds so… Sounds like the kind of name you grow up hating because your parents were assholes and didn't think about the logistics of naming a kid 'Antonia.'"

"I think it's pretty," he said, tightening his arms and holding him close. "And besides, 'Tony' still works for it. Or would that be 'Toni' with an 'I'?"

"Steve—"

"Why choose? How 'bout 'Natasha Antonia'? Ugh, that's a mouthful. 'Antonia Natasha'? That sounds better. Rolls off the tongue better. Antonia Natasha Stark-Rogers. Or, I guess in this case, it's Antonia Natasha Carbonell."

He glanced up at Steve pointedly. "I don't even get to choose my own fake name?"

Steve blanched, his hold on Tony going slack, and he opened and closed his mouth a couple times and made a few facial tics before he said a quiet, "I—I'm sorry, Tony. I didn't mean to— I was just making some suggestions. I didn't meant to say that you couldn't—"

But Tony just reached up and patted his chest. "That's OK, babe. I wasn't actually trying to lay a guilt trip on you. 'Antonia Natasha' is actually…kind of nice."

"Really?" Steve said, sounding a little surprised by Tony's admission.

"Yeah," he said with a shrug. "It's kind of, I don't know, _elegant_ -sounding or something. Maybe. I don't know."

Steve grinned, and he reached up and toyed with the blonde hair of the wig Tony had on his head. "I think Antonia Natasha is more of a brunette than a blonde, though."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Did you want me to walk into an obstetrician's office looking _exactly_ like Captain America's gorgeous mystery date? You know, the sexy one he's been seen around town with several times in the past couple weeks."

"Oh, so she's _sexy_ now?"

Tony just blinked at him. "I'm sorry. Do you not find her sexy?"

Steve sighed and dropped his head, bumping his forehead against Tony's as he shifted his arms to put his hands to Tony's shoulders. With his thumbs, he toyed with the crocheted sleeves of Tony's shirt and said, "Of _course_ I find her sexy."

"Mmm… Yeah, but only when you're _asked_. It's not as sincere that way."

Steve pulled away to look him in the eye. "You still really need to ask if I find you attractive like this?"

Tony shrugged again. "Doesn't hurt to hear every so often." He patted the small-but-growing bulge of his abdomen and added, "This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better."

But Steve shook his head and said, "No, that's not a bad thing. Don't say that. That's…amazing." He moved a hand from Tony's shoulder down to his abdomen, resting his hand over top of Tony's. "I've kind of been afraid to say anything because I know you've kind of been struggling with this, but this whole thing is amazing and _you're_ amazing for doing it."

Tony scoffed and rolled his eyes. "Please. Any idiot could do it."

Steve just shook his head again and said, "No, that's not true. _I_ couldn't do it, but _you?_ " He rubbed his hand over Tony's and gave it a squeeze. "You're amazing for doing this. I know I haven't really said it before, but you're amazing, and I just…"

He shrugged but didn't say anything after that, and Tony assumed he either couldn't think of the words to say or he was too embarrassed to say them.

He put his other hand on top of Steve's so that Steve's hand was sandwiched in between his hands, and they stayed like that a moment, neither one saying or doing anything but staring down at Tony's abdomen, and Steve was the one to finally break the silence by saying, "You know, if we really want to make that appointment, we'd better leave now."

"Mmm…we don't have to go."

" _Tony_ —"

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said and dropped his hands away. "I guess we…" He took another good look over Steve and let out an obnoxious and dramatic sigh.

"What?" Steve asked and glanced down at himself.

"That," Tony said and motioned at him.

Steve just laughed, evidently understanding Tony's frustration. "What?" he asked again.

" _This_ ," he said and motioned over himself, "is what you're supposed to dress like when you're going out in public where people are going to see you."

Steve pointed over his ensemble. "That cute little top you've got there with the little bow on the side and, uh — what are they called? — Capri pants?"

" _Presentable!_ You want to look _presentable!_ Damn it, I even put some makeup on!"

Steve nodded. "I noticed. Looks good on you."

"Right, so _I_ look cute. _You_ , on the other hand, look like a fucking frat house threw up on you."

Steve raised an eyebrow and gave him a smug look. "So, you're saying I don't look like myself. I'm not recognizable."

"No, I'm saying it looks like a frat house threw up on Captain America."

Steve shook his head. "Nope. It didn't throw up on 'Captain America.'" Then he shrugged a little and smiled a little sheepishly. "I mean, maybe it threw up on 'Steve Rogers'…"

"Whatever," he said and grabbed his bag before led the way over to the elevator. "Come on. Let's get this dumb fucking thing over with. But don't stand so close to me! I don't want people getting the idea that we're together."

Steve just put a hand to his lower back and steered him onto the car. "Oh, heaven forbid."

Deciding it would be best to attempt to blend in with the rabble, they walked a few blocks away from the Tower before they hailed a cab, Tony barely raising his hand in the air before one was pulling over. As the car pulled up to the curb, some asshole in a business suit attempted to steal it from them, but Tony shoulder-checked him and said, "Yeah, I don't think so, pal," shoving him away as he opened the door and slid into the back seat. Steve apologized — _fucking apologized to the asshole that was trying to steal their cab!_ — before he slid in beside Tony and closed the door behind him. Tony just glared at him, but Steve ignored him and instead leaned forward to give the address to the driver in that damned, thick Brooklyn accent he used when he was trying to disguise himself, which honestly made him look like such an asshole the way he was dressed that Tony was almost — _almost_ — a little embarrassed to be seen with him. Yes, they were both playing parts, but this…this was not Steve's most attractive side, and he couldn't help it if he felt that way.

Now, the way he'd appeared at their wedding, on the other hand…

"And no detours," Steve told the driver, still in that stupid accent of his. "This ain't a Gray Line bus tour."

He sat back in his seat as the driver pulled into traffic, and he smirked in pride at Tony, who pulled his oversized sunglasses off only to show Steve how hard he was rolling his eyes at him. Yeah, nice tough-guy act, you overgrown boy scout. Though he guess he should count himself lucky. Steve could have offered to _share_ the cab with the guy instead of just apologizing to him. Surely, that was something they did back in his day.

Whatever. He stuck the glasses back on, and Steve laughed and snagged an arm around his shoulders to pull him into a half-embrace and said, "Ah, Nattie, don't be such a sourpuss."

He smacked a kiss to the top of Tony's head, and Tony said, "You call me that again, there's a couch in our apartment with your name on it."

"No there's not. I heard about how much you whined when we got married and they wouldn't let us see each other until the ceremony."

"OK, first of all, I did not _whine_. I explained to them very calmly and rationally how stupid they were being with their insistence on us following bullshit 'traditions' that were outdated thirty years ago."

Steve nodded, taking this into consideration a moment before he said, "Bruce said there were tears."

"Bruce is full of shit!" he cried then clamped his mouth shut and sank back into the seat some as the driver glanced at him in the rear view mirror.

"Nice goin', Nattie."

Tony rolled his eyes again and said, "You are so close to sleeping on the couch you don't even know."

"Honey, let's face it. The only way I'm sleepin' on the couch is if you're sleepin' there with me."

"I can totally sleep by myself. I don't _need_ you in my bed."

"Thought it was 'our' bed?"

Tony waved him off and said, "Technicalities. Look, the point is that I don't _need_ to sleep beside you, all right? I don't know what the others told you, but they're full of shit and they exaggerate, all right? I did not _cry_ because they wouldn't let us see each other until we got married. It was actually kind of nice not having to share the bed with a blanket hog."

Steve scoffed and said, "Well, you must be thinking of some other guy you married, 'cause _I'm_ not the one that steals the blankets in my sleep."

"I'm sorry, are you accusing me of being a blanket hog?"

Steve pretended to think about this a moment then said, "Yeah, I guess I am."

Tony nodded and rather noticeably rested his hand on his abdomen. He rubbed it a bit and said, "OK, I'm going to ask you this again, and I want you to think _very hard_ about how you want to answer. Are you accusing me of being a blanket hog?"

"Unquestionably," Steve said, either not understanding or not caring about the move Tony had telegraphed. "You turn a lot in your sleep. I think it's even gotten worse since…"

He hesitated then motioned to Tony's abdomen.

"Yeah, well, you sure know how to make a girl feel special."

Steve gave him a funny look like he wasn't sure how to take Tony's comment, and Tony smiled a little and shrugged then turned to look out the window to watch the passing scenery and traffic of Midtown. It was only a moment before he felt another hand slide over his abdomen and give it a gentle rub, and then there were warm, soft lips pressing against the exposed flesh at the crook of his neck.

He closed his eyes and moved his hand so it was resting atop Steve's. He ~~purred~~ hummed a little at the contact and pressed Steve's hand harder into his abdomen, the satiating feel of possessiveness thrumming through his veins and doing something to him he couldn't explain. God, he loved this man. He drove him crazy sometimes, but he loved him so, so much. He trusted him. He trusted that if he ever fell, Steve would be there to catch him. He trusted him to make this whole crazy thing bearable for him. Granted, if Space Crazy was to be believed, he wouldn't even _be_ in this position were he not somehow 'soul bonded' or whatever the fuck it was to Steve, but still, this wasn't the worst experience he'd ever undergone, and being with Steve made it so, so much more bearable than it might otherwise have been.

The cab arrived at their destination sooner than he thought it would, and Steve swiped his card to pay for the ride then got out, taking Tony by the hand and pulling him with him just as a group of twenty-somethings with too much money and too little responsibility jumped into the vacated car. Tony adjusted his sunglasses and, blonde hair falling over his shoulders, led the way into the office building that housed the doctor's offices. Steve slunk right alongside of him, hands in his pockets and goofy look on his face. Seeing this, he couldn't help but roll his eyes and wonder why _anyone_ had ever thought Steve was cut out for spy work. The guy wouldn't know subtle sometimes if it hit him in the face with a 2x4.

" _Stop that!"_ he hissed as they stopped in front of the elevator bank. "Act normal."

"What's wrong with you?"

"You're embarrassing yourself. Just act like yourself. Stop pretending to be some goofy frat boy hipster."

"Hipster?" Steve asked and hit the 'up' button because Tony had rather pointedly _not_ pressed it in the naïve hope that Steve would finally realize what a stupid and wasted endeavor this was and just let them go home already.

Evidently, Steve was bound and determined to go through with this stupid thing. Sometimes, Steve's stubbornness could be _such_ a fucking turn-off.

He sighed a little and said, "Remember when we went to Williamsburg?"

Steve was silent a moment before he said, " _Oh_. That word's definitely changed since my day," then frowned and added, "I'm not like that!"

"Yeah? And you won't be unless you want to get divorced."

The car arrived in the lobby, and they pushed on with about half-a-dozen other people that had crowded behind them in the time they had been waiting, and Steve kindly held the door for everyone then hit the button on the panel for each of the floors requested, which, of course, just meant it took them longer to get to their floor, but whatever, wasn't like he wanted to go to this stupid thing, anyway. Bruce and JARVIS were both totally capable of handling everything for him no matter what Bruce said.

They were the last two on the car by the time the elevator arrived at their desired floor. Steve stepped off the moment the doors opened and then stood there and held the door for Tony, who pursed his lips and frowned at the quiet hallway before him and said, "How 'bout we don't and say we did?"

" _Nattie_ ," Steve said in that stupid accent and leveled him with a pointed look.

He huffed and rolled his eyes before he squared his shoulders and stormed off the car and onto the floor. "I mean it," he muttered as he brushed roughly past Steve. "I swear to god if you call me that again, you're sleeping on the couch."

Steve snorted a laugh and led him down the hall to the doctor's office. "No, I'm not," he said with too much assurance in his voice.

"Wanna bet?"

"Yeah," Steve said as they came upon the doctor's suite. "I do."

He pulled open the door and held it open for Tony, goofy, assured grin on his stupid face, and Tony scowled at him and stepped into the waiting room.

It was a quiet, simple affair with padded chairs and tables and magazines and a television in the corner that was airing some daytime cooking program. There were only about a handful of women at current, and of them, only maybe two of them were noticeably pregnant. The others were either not far enough along or just there for an annual gynecological exam.

Fuck. Just saying he didn't turn back at the end of this, would he have to...? You know, stone better left unturned until it was absolutely necessary.

Steve nudged him over to the window, and he took a breath and steeled himself then went over and said a quiet, "Uh, Natasha S— _Carbonell_. Natasha Carbonell."

The girl at the desk looked at her computer screen and said, "OK, Ms. Carbonell—" She reached over and picked up a series of papers attached to a clipboard. "If you could just fill these out—"

She handed the clipboard over, and Tony looked at the white sheets of paper and frowned. Shit. He didn't know the answers to this stuff. That's what he had Pepper and Steve for.

Oh.

He turned back and saw Steve sitting on a chair by a different door than the one they'd come in and paging through a magazine. Being nudged out of the way by someone else coming into the office, Tony took the clipboard with the pen attached at the top and went over and sat down with a slight huff next to Steve. Steve didn't even bother asking what was wrong. He just kept paging through his magazine. Tony huffed out another breath, and when that still didn't arouse Steve's curiosity, he cleared his throat. When that _still_ didn't work, he resorted to thrusting the clipboard of papers at Steve and said, "Here."

Steve took hold of the clipboard only because Tony had blocked his view of the magazine with it, and he paged through a couple sheets and said in a quiet voice, "I think _you're_ supposed to fill this out."

"OK, I'm gonna level with you," he said, matching Steve's library-level murmur, "main reason I married you was so you'd do stuff like this."

Steve shot him a sideways look. "So I'd do your paperwork for you?"

"Yeah. Pepper used to do it, but then I kind of made her my CEO, so she stopped doing it—"

"And who did it after she stopped doing it?"

He thought about this a moment then said, "Happy might have had to fill out a couple forms for me."

Steve sighed and held the clipboard out to him as though he expected Tony to take it right back. Tony just looked at it then looked at Steve and said, "Yeah, I don't like to be handed things."

Steve nodded at the window on the other side of the room. "You took this from the girl at the desk, didn't you?"

Tony glared at him a moment then grabbed the clipboard out of Steve's hand. "Fine," he muttered and pulled the pen out from where it had been tucked up at the top. "Name? That's easy," he said and scrawled down 'Natasha Carbonell.' "Soc? Shit. I can't use my real one, can I?"

He looked to Steve, who shrugged and continued to page through the magazine as he said, "Tell 'em you forgot what it is."

"Fine," he said and moved onto the next blank space. "Date of birth? Uh… What do I…?"

"Not filling it out for you," Steve said with a shake of his head. And, to further drive home his point, he just turned the page on his magazine.

"OK, well, just _help_ me here! I know I don't look like I'm twenty-five, but I don't think I look like I'm forty-three, either."

"Then just pick a date," Steve said.

He thought about it a moment, tapping the pen against his chin. JARVIS had said he gave the appearance of being thirty-six, so he did the math on that and jotted down a birthdate of '05-29-78' because if he got to make this shit up, he was going to pretend he was turning thirty-six rather than thirty-seven in a couple weeks.

"OK," he said and read the next line, "address. Fuck. Uh…"

He knew the address of the Tower, and he didn't think it was well-known enough (the actual street address and not just 'Avengers Tower' — _everyone_ knew 'Avengers Tower'), but was he still willing to chance it?

He skipped that for the time being and went on to the other questions. He skipped 'email address' and 'home telephone number' and put Steve's number on the 'cell phone' line. He got confused when he saw something asking about 'father's name' until he saw something asking for 'mother's name,' and he assumed it meant his parents.

He skipped those lines.

He happily checked off 'married' on the 'marital status' line, and then— "Uh, babe?"

"Hmm?"

He pointed to a line on the sheet asking for spouse's name and date of birth. "They want your info, too."

Steve sighed and turned away from his magazine to look at the sheet. He was quiet only a moment before he said, "Roger Stevens. July four, nineteen seventy-six."

Tony snorted a laugh. "The bicentennial, really?"

"I think it's kind of fitting," Steve said with a blasé shrug.

"And, honey, you know I love you, but you don't look like you're thirty-seven."

Steve just grinned a little and said, "I look good for my age," before he turned back to the magazine, and Tony shrugged and murmured, "All right," and wrote down exactly what Steve had told him.

Under 'employer,' he wrote 'self-employed' because it was kind of true. He was an Avenger, and he was the one funding and outfitting the Avengers even if Steve was the de facto leader. He skipped over the line about his 'preferred pharmacy' because his preferred dispensary was 'Bruce Banner,' but he knew he couldn't put that on a form. Insurance information he skipped as well because his insurance information was for 'Tony Stark,' and he was pretty sure Blue Cross wasn't going to approve payment for an obstetrician's visit for, well, _Tony Stark_.

He flipped to the next page. Oh. The fun stuff.

He filled in 'his' name and social security number and date of birth at the top then looked down to the next line and saw 'primary care physician.' Again, he itched to write 'Bruce Banner' but instead stuck with 'N/A.' Again, the bullshit with the pharmacy, and then—

"Reason for today's visit," he murmured aloud.

He was very, very tempted to scrawl out 'got knocked up by a super soldier,' but he didn't think Steve would approve of that and, plus, as _open_ as they were being with things as of late, he wasn't sure he was ready for anything like that to get out just yet — if ever.

So, he let rationality rule the day and just wrote a simple 'pregnant.'

First date of last menstrual period? Yeah, OK, he left that one alone.

Previous pregnancies, abortions, miscarriages, stillbirths, live births, and living children. OK, this was starting to get a little weird.

He put a dash on all the lines to indicate zero because, yeah, this was definitely the first time _anything_ like this had ever happened to him.

Pregnancy complications such as diabetes or high blood pressure?

Not that he was aware of.

How old was he when he had his first period?

Seriously?

Is it regular? How long does it last? Uh…wait, wasn't it the same for all women? Currently sexually active?

Yeah, he happily checked 'Y' on that one.

Are you currently in a relationship?

Yes, very much so.

How long have you been in this relationship?

He tapped the pen against his chin again then wrote '2 years.' It was technically closer to a year- and-a-half, but whatever. He rounded up.

How many sexual partners have you had in your lifetime?

OK, that was a little… Though, if, like Natasha had said, he just wanted to count _this_ body… He wrote '1.'

Age at first intercourse. Had he ever been sexually abused? Is he having any sexual problems?

Jesus, was _nothing_ personal? He skipped the first one and wrote 'no' for the second and third ones.

Then there were questions about pap smears and HPV and ovarian cysts and uterine fibroids and yeast infections and vaginal bacterial infections an issues with urination, and once he processed what all those words meant, he turned to Steve and murmured, "Yeah, I don't want to be a woman anymore."

Steve just glanced over at him and said, "Why?"

Tony pointed at the sheet of paper. "Look what they're asking about! That's— What— How— I mean, is it _really_ this—"

Steve pointed at the sheet and said, "You can probably check 'none' under birth control."

Tony scowled and did so. "That's how I got into this mess in the first place."

And then they wanted to know medical history and surgical history. There was nothing to check for 'palladium poisoning' under medical history, so he left that blank and _this_ body evidently hadn't seen any surgeries, so he left that blank as well then moved onto the section about 'family history,' which was pretty easy. Just his parents, both of whom were deceased through no _real_ fault of their own, and the only thing he knew for certain was that his father was an alcoholic. And an asshole, but that probably didn't belong on a medical form.

There were questions about his occupation (he put 'entrepreneur' for that) and tobacco and alcohol and drug use ('no,' 'quit,' and 'no') and whether he was currently taking any medications.

Well, Steve had knocked him up, and Steve had some of that super serum floating around his super veins — presumably — so there was a slim possibility that the serum was now floating around _his_ bloodstream, but not only was he not sure if that counted, he wasn't sure if he wanted that information on the record, either.

He left that blank.

Then there was a whole section dedicated to 'have you had any of these things happen to you in the last 12 months.' He gave a cursory glance and figured none of it pertained to him because, honestly, he'd been feeling pretty good as of late. Not perfect — certainly not what he'd felt like when he was twenty-five — but he'd been feeling pretty damned good as of late. He didn't know if it was just that he was feeling good about himself and what he was contributing to the world or the fact that he was crazy in love with an amazing person or if it was something more.

He left it blank.

He sighed and flipped to the next section of papers and groaned when he saw it was _more_ questions about prior pregnancies. He skipped that stuff then went to the next section, which was all about genetics of both parents and genetic risk factors.

He marked 'Caucasian' for both sides, went through the list of genetic risk factors and didn't see anything that he thought matched him or Steve (the pre-serum Steve, not the post-serum slice of beefcake) then went down to the section that asked about the father. He snorted a laugh, jotted down '37' for the father's age and then, where it asked for the father's health status and medical issues was very, very tempted to write 'government experiment from the '40s that survived being frozen in a glacier for 70 years — you tell me' but instead just wrote 'excellent/no issues' because, well, right _now_ it was true.

For his occupation, Tony snorted another laugh and put 'team captain.' Hey, it was technically true.

He looked over the form once more to make sure he'd answered what he was comfortable answering then said, "OK, I'm done."

"Do I _want_ to know what you wrote?"

"Nothing bad. I mean, I might have thought about putting some questionable stuff, but it's pretty boring and generic. I mean, it's hard to answer truthfully when I'm _kind of_ in a different body than I'm used to and you're a fucking super soldier."

"Shh…"

"I wasn't being that loud!"

Steve just nodded his head at the window. "Go take the forms back."

" _Or_ , and here's a crazy suggestion, _you_ being the sweet, wonderful _father_ of my child could go take them back for me."

Steve went back to his magazine. "Exercise is good for you."

"That's rude," he said put got up and carried the forms back to the window. He handed the clipboard over, and the girl at the desk said, "OK, Ms. Carbonell, they'll call you back when they're ready."

Tony tweaked a smile at her then went back to the chair and sat down. He huffed a little and tried to get comfortable, shifting position every ten seconds until Steve said, " _What?_ "

"These chairs are really uncomfortable."

"They're really not," Steve said and went back to the magazine. "You shoulda seen what we had back in my—"

Tony ripped the magazine out of his hands before he could finish his thought, and he turned to Tony, mouth flat, as Tony folded up the magazine and tossed it back onto the table ahead of them.

"What, Tony?"

Tony threw a hard elbow into Steve's ribs. "Hey! _Not_ 'Tony' here. 'Natasha,' remember?"

He exhaled a breath. "OK. _What_ , Natasha?"

"You know, you could at least pretend like you _want_ to pay attention to me."

"You could always just say to me, 'Hey, Roger, can we talk?'"

Steve had a stupid little smile on his face at that, and Tony couldn't believe he was really going with 'Roger,' but OK, whatever. He sighed and sat back in his chair and folded his arms, nestling them between his breasts and the small bump of his abdomen.

"Look, I get that this whole thing is amusing for you—"

"Is _that_ your problem?" Steve mused and reached out to snake an arm around his shoulders. Tony let him, and he let him use that arm to pull him close so as to smack a kiss against his forehead. "It is…a _lot_ of different things for me, to be honest. Is it amusing watching you get all worked up about things? Sure. But it always has been amusing. It's also exciting and terrifying. I didn't—"

He clamped his mouth shut at that and shook his head and muttered something under his breath that Tony couldn't make out before he started talking again.

"But I don't think it's _amusing_ seeing you go through this. I mean, I do, but not— I'm not laughing _at_ you, I'm laughing with— I mean, it's funny the way you can get so… _pissy_ about things, but I'm never not— Look, I'm gonna stick by you, OK? For better or worse. I just hate…"

He sighed out a breath and reached up with his other arm to complete the embrace, and he nestled his head so that his mouth was by Tony's ear and whispered, "I just hate that we didn't _choose_ this for ourselves. I hate that it was forced on us, and I hate that you bear the brunt of everything for it while all I can do is sit back and watch and tell you how amazing you are and how proud I am of you. But whatever it takes, we are going to get through this, all right? I know it's not the worst thing that's ever happened to anyone, and I know it's not even the worst thing that's ever happened to _you_ , but it wasn't something of our choosing, and now we have to live with the consequences, and I hate the idea that we have to make the best of a bad situation, but to a degree, we do, and I am going to do whatever I can to make this the best situation as I possibly can for you. Because you're mine, and I'm sticking by you through thick and thin, for better or worse, forever and ever, understand?"

Tony's vision went a little blurry at that, and he muttered a choked, " _Goddamn it, Steve!_ " and turned to press his face into the crook of Steve's neck. Steve just laughed and rubbed his back in slow, soothing circles and then presumably said to someone that was watching them, "She's just _really_ emotional with this whole thing. Slightest thing makes her cry."

"No, I'm not, and no, it doesn't!"

He laughed again and continued to rub his back. "Yeah, you are, and yeah, it does."

"I have something in my eye."

"Is that why you're talking into my neck?"

Tony grumbled and pulled away, brushing his fingers at the corners of his eyes to fix whatever had been messed up and muttering a, "Shut up," that didn't have much heat behind it.

"Is this your first?"

Tony turned to the woman that had asked, a woman Tony presumed to be in her early thirties. She smiled softly at Tony while she waited for him to answer, and Tony stared at her a moment, his brain short-circuiting a little at what she'd asked.

_First? First_ implied that there might very possibly be _more than one_ at some point, and that… Yeah, no, not thinking about that. Not going in that direction. Nope. Nope. Nope.

"Yeah," he said, a little distantly then made a hesitant motion in a direction and said, "I'll be right back."

"You OK?" Steve asked as Tony got to his feet.

"Yeah, I just… Bladder."

"Oh!" the woman said in an attempt to be helpful. She pointed to a little alcove beside them and added, "Through there."

Tony smiled tightly at her before he shoved his bag at Steve to hold and went over to the alcove. He went in and closed the door behind him, pushing the button to lock it and sighing out a breath.

Jesus Christ, _first?_ Did she really think he might willingly do this a second or a third time? OK, to be fair, she had no idea who he was, but _still_. _First!_ Like this was only the _first_ of several. Fuck, Space Crazy wouldn't do this to him _again_ , would she?

Could she?

OK, not thinking about that right now if he wanted to keep his sanity.

He actually did have to pee, and so he relieved himself and washed up in the sink, and he stopped a moment to look at himself in the mirror — the blonde hair and the way his sunglasses were pushed back atop his head to create a slight cascading effect with the hair. Again, not unattractive as a blonde, but he was definitely more suited to being a brunette.

The fact that he was even in this position, though… Fuck, how insane was his life?

He left the bathroom and went back over to his chair, seeing that the woman was gone and Steve was back to reading a magazine, long legs stretched out in front of him. He sat down, and Steve flipped a page and said, "You OK?"

"Yeah," he said and took his bag back. He dug through for his phone and pulled it out. "Just had to pee, like I seem to have to do _constantly_ now, I swear to god."

"I think that's a _little_ hyperbolic, don't you?"

He played with his phone, checking headlines and stock prices and any text messages he might have gotten. Only one from Barton that asked « _Having fun??? :D :D»_

Asshole.

"Yeah?" he said and turned the screen off then stuck the phone back in his bag. "Well, when this happens to you, we'll see how hyperbolic you think it is to have to pee all the fucking time. Don't even get me started about how fucking weird it is to have something moving around inside of you."

Steve went a little funny at the mention of 'when this happens to you,' a little hesitant or nervous or something like that — like the thought of having to do what Tony was doing didn't sit well with him.

"Oh," Tony said, low and knowing, "we're going to talk about _that_ when we get home."

"Talk about what?" Steve asked, trying for faux innocence or confusion but failing miserably.

He was saved from Tony's answer by a mildly-pregnant woman trying to walk in front of them, saying, "Excuse me," to Steve's long legs and giant clodhoppers that were in her way. Steve apologized and pulled his legs back, but Tony wasn't watching that.

Tony was watching the little blonde toddling behind her.

The one that was clad in purple overalls, her hair pulled back into a ponytail as she clutched what looked like a plush Captain America doll tight in her arm. He wasn't good with ages, but he'd peg this one at about three — maybe a little older — and his stomach did a somersault as her mother said to her, "Emma, come on, over here," and beckoned for her to follow over to another row of chairs near to some children's play sets.

He stared at her, watching as she hopped the rest of the way then collapsed next to the toys, setting her little Cap doll down beside her as she picked up some connector blocks.

"I'm never going to get used to that."

Tony blinked out of his reverie and looked beside him to where Steve was looking in the little girl's direction and shaking his head.

"Used to what?"

"They make _toys_ of me."

Tony nodded, thankful for the distraction from the distant echoes of a life that was never his. "All of us, babe," he said and patted Steve's arm. "Don't think you're special here."

"Yeah," he said and turned to face Tony, "but it's just—" He stopped short and shook his head, and he seemed to give some thought to what he wanted to say before he continued, "If my ma were here, I think she'd secretly buy up every variation she could get her hands on. She wouldn't have the money to waste, but she'd still do it. Buck would probably just shake his head at that."

Tony reached out and took Steve's hand and gave it a squeeze but didn't say anything. Sometimes he knew Steve just wanted to talk, especially when it concerned his wayward friend.

"Maybe he does shake his head?" he mused. "I don't know. Maybe he doesn't even remember."

Tony just squeezed his hand again, and that was when a door opened and a nurse stepped out and said, "Natasha Carbonell?"

Tony's stomach dropped out from under him. Fuck. He'd forgotten about this.

Maybe thinking Tony would play dumb, Steve didn't even hesitate to catch the nurse's attention so that she knew she'd been heard, and Tony grumbled to himself and clutched his bag as he stood up. He went over to meet up with the nurse, and when he caught her gaze, he motioned back toward Steve and said, "Uh, is it OK if my—"

She smiled and nodded. "Sure! Bring him along if you want."

Tony glanced back and saw Steve eyeing the situation warily, and when Tony asked, "Coming?" Steve took an inhale of breath, dropped his magazine, and got to his feet.

They followed the nurse back not to an examining room, but to the doctor's personal office. Tony had a feeling this wasn't standard procedure, but he kept his mouth shut about it and went along with it.

"Just have a seat," the nurse said, a warm smile on her face as she motioned them into the room. "The doctor will be right with you."

Steve nodded and said their thanks, and he motioned for Tony to lead them in. Tony rolled his eyes but stepped into the small office, and he took a seat in one of the chairs situated in front of the desk. Steve sat down in the chair beside him, and Tony checked his watch and crossed and uncrossed his legs and drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair and—

"Would you stop that?" Steve asked, not even bothering to look up from whatever he was reading.

"I'm nervous."

"Need a bromide?"

Tony stopped drumming his fingers to look at Steve. "Sometimes I forget how old you really are," he muttered.

Steve snorted a laugh at this but just paged through whatever he was reading, and Tony realized it was a manila folder.

"What? What are you doing? What's that?" And then, he realized. "Hey, whoa! Security breach! That's not for you to read."

"Then it shouldn't have been left out," Steve replied and paged through the chart some more.

"All right, normally, I'm all for snooping, but that's usually on shady government agencies and _not_ on poor, unsuspecting maternity cases."

Steve closed up the folder and tossed it back onto the desk where he'd found it. "I just wanted to see something."

"What?"

"A comparison."

"Between?"

"You."

"And?"

"Other women. See how what I know of what you're going through compares." He shrugged. "That's all."

But Tony pursed his lips and shook his head. "Honey, I don't care who you are. I don't think even Captain America has carte blanche to look through other people's medical records."

Steve just shrugged again as a cheery voice called out, "Knock, knock!" and they both turned to see the woman they could only presume was the doctor enter the room. "Hi," she said, all bright smiles as she extended her hand to shake, "I'm Doctor Ganford. You must be _Natasha_."

The way she said the name indicated that she knew full well that there was nothing normal about this case that had just popped into her office. Still, Tony smiled and shook her hand in return and said, "Yes," before the doctor turned to Steve and shook his hand as well. Steve made to get up as he did so, but she just waved him off and said that was fine before she went over to her desk and sat down. She typed a few things into the computer and stared at a screen a moment before she turned to them and said, "So!" She folded her hands on the desk. "Doctor Banner…explained… your unique situation to me," she said, and if Tony was feeling charitable, he would say her smile was intended to comfort and put them at ease. "Bruce is a good friend of mine, and I wouldn't want to do anything to jeopardize that. I can promise you we will be as discreet about this as necessary."

Tony slapped his hands on the arms of the chair. "OK, whelp, that makes me feel better. Glad we had this consult. So, uh, six more months until the next visit, right? Right. OK, thanks again. Nice to meet you—"

He tried to stand up, but Steve, the jerk, just grabbed his arm and pulled him back down, and Dr. Ganford smiled at him and said, "I can only imagine how frightening a prospect this must be for you—"

" _No_ ," he countered, "no, you can't. No one can. This is— This is so far beyond normal it's crazy, and there is no way you or Steve or anyone else in the world can understand just exactly _how_ I feel about this. Hell, half the time, _I_ don't understand exactly how I feel about this!"

"I know, Mister— er, Miss— uh—"

She made a face like she wasn't quite sure what to say, and Tony said, "How 'bout just 'Tony,' seeing as that's still my name? I know that's not the name I booked it under, but, whatever."

"All right, Tony," she said and smiled at him, and again, Tony suspected it was intended to comfort and put them at ease, but Tony felt nothing short of jittery and couldn't in any way sit still.

And then came the fluttering again.

He groaned. "It's doing it again, Steve."

"What?"

He motioned to his abdomen. "Your child. It's b _othering_ me."

" _My_ child," Steve muttered but sat up some, and he reached out and put his hand to Tony's abdomen and grinned like a fool as he felt the fluttering through the layers of skin and clothing. Tony rolled his eyes and muttered, "Sap," as Steve kept his hand there until the fluttering subsided.

"Tony, may I ask," Doctor Ganford said once Steve had pulled his hand back, "have you accepted what's happening to you yet?"

"Huh?"

She smiled and folded her hands atop her desk like she was trying to be as patient and gentle with her comments as possible.

"Well, you spent nearly all of your life in a body designed to impregnate not be impregnated. To now experience life as the one that's been impregnated—"

"Is freaky as hell?"

She lost her composure for a moment, laughing like she knew she wasn't supposed to before she said, "Well, that's one way of putting it."

"Yeah, I totally understand that I got turned into a woman and got knocked up by a frozen fossil."

Steve shot him an unhappy look at Tony's characterization of him, but Doctor Ganford just shook her head a little and said, "I'm not asking if you _understand_ it. I'm asking if you've _accepted_ it."

"Is there a difference?"

Oh, he damned well knew there was a difference, but he was playing deliberately obtuse because, to be perfectly honest, _no_ , he hadn't _accepted_ it yet. Not really. And it really wasn't something he wanted to think about because, again, if he _did_ accept it, then what did it say about who he really was?

"Yes, and quite a substantial one," she replied, looking solemn and a little sympathetic. "You can understand what's happening to you but still be in denial that it's happening or keep hoping that you'll wake up one morning and it won't be there and everything will have gone back to normal. As I understand it from Bruce, this is…not something that can be terminated. It has to follow its natural course, and I'm not sure that you've actually accepted that this event is happening to you."

"What? No, I totally get that this is happening to me. I understand it. I know it. I spent forty-three years as a man, met the wrong screwball from space, got turned into a woman, and got knocked up by an antique they pulled out of an iceberg, and there's a little caveat about having to carry the whole thing to term because otherwise I'll die. Yes, I totally get that."

She shook her head again and said, "You're deliberately misunderstanding me, and you're evading my question. You _understand_ what's happened to you, but have you _accepted_ it?"

He grimaced and looked from the doctor and then to Steve and back again, and he knowing he wasn't going to get out of answering the question — god knows he'd tried — he averted his gaze and muttered, "I try not to think about it."

He heard Steve suck in an audible breath, and the doctor nodded like he'd merely confirmed what she already believed and said, "I wish I could recommend a support group for you, but to be honest, I don’t believe there's any in existence for your…unique situation."

"Yeah, I don't really do that touchy-feely, hippy-drippy crap anyway. That's more up Bruce's alley than mine."

"Sadly, I do believe it would have been a benefit to you. Pregnancy is scary enough when it's something you've wanted and looked forward to for years, never mind something that's been thrust upon you without your consent."

Steve's mouth dropped open in insult, and Tony leaned in toward the doctor and said, "Let's get one thing straight here: He didn't force anything on me, OK? Jesus, he didn't— He didn't _rape me_."

She put her hands up some in a slightly defensive manner. "I didn't mean to imply anything of the sort. As I understand it, this is a pregnancy that has its roots in love."

Steve blushed a little, but Tony sat back in his chair some and grumbled, "Jeez, when you put it like that, it just sounds stupid."

She laughed. "I meant it in the best way possible. But in that it was part of a much larger and more unfortunate event that was not of your choosing. That's what I meant about consent. You said yourself that if you were to terminate, you would end your own life as well, which I find a rather…" She shook her head like she couldn't even begin to fathom what that meant. "My goodness, the world we live in nowadays."

Tony snorted a laugh and muttered, "Tell me about it."

She smiled again, and Tony still felt like it was done to try and put him at ease. "All right, Tony, I'm going to have one of the nurses take you over to the exam room, and we can get started with that. Make sure everything's as it should be."

She picked up the phone and dialed an extension, and as she murmured to somebody about something, Tony looked to Steve and said, "Wait, whoa, _exam?_ What does she mean _exam?_ I thought this was one of those free-consult things?"

" _Tony_ ," Steve murmured in that _you're an idiot_ voice. "No, this is—"

"OK," Doctor Ganford said as she hung up the phone. "Serena is going to take you over to the exam room now. We'll go over more of your medical history and what to expect over there. I just wanted to take this opportunity to meet with you and discuss your rather…unique situation. In here, you can be 'Tony.' Out there, you'll be only 'Natasha.' How does that sound?"

Steve just sat there, slouched in his chair, looking at Tony out of the corner of his eye like he was just _waiting_ for the ball to drop, but Tony looked at the doctor and said, "Uh, yeah, what do you mean _exam?_ "

Steve just nodded like he'd fully expected Tony to say that.

Unfortunately, the doctor didn't, and she laughed and got up from her chair and went to the door.

"It's not going to hurt. I promise," she said and opened the door. There was a nurse in blue scrubs standing on the other side of the door, and she exchanged a quiet word with the doctor while they waited for Steve and Tony to gather their things.

But instead of getting up like Steve was doing, Tony just sat there and gave him his saddest and most pathetic look imaginable. Steve stopped for a moment and stared at him, but he just pointed to the door and said, "March."

"But, _Ste_ — _babe!_ " he whined, forgetting himself for a moment. Wasn't Steve trying to play as a 'Roger' for this stupid exercise?

But Steve held his ground. "You heard what the doctor said, Nattie."

Tony jumped up at the offending name. He glared at Steve, got right up in his face, and snapped, "I swear to _god_ , 'Roger'!" at him then turned on his heel and stormed out of the room in a huff. He huffed a little at the nurse that was standing outside the door waiting for them, but he followed her down the hall, Steve, that bastard, right behind him.

"Let's get this bullshit over with," he said, making sure to sound as prickly and annoyed as he felt with the situation.

"Don't worry, Natasha," the nurse said, just as friendly and cheery as the doctor had been. "Women go through this every day."

"Yeah, about that," he said as the nurse stopped beside a scale. He stopped as well, and he looked at it and said, "What's this?"

"We just need to get your height and weight down," she said and motioned for him to step onto the scale.

He rolled his eyes and huffed again, and he shoved his bag at Steve then did as the nurse suggested. He stood there a moment and waited for the digital readout to complete, and when it did—

"Yeah, uh, your scale needs to be recalibrated," he said and pointed to the number it had spit out. No fucking way was he a hundred and fifty-seven pounds!

But the nurse just smiled and wrote something down on a sheet of paper before she reached out and pulled up the measuring rod then set about recording his height.

"Five-eight," she murmured to herself then went to write it down, and Tony looked at the little metal rod ahead of him and squinted at the tic marks and said, "Are you sure? I thought I was five- nine."

"Would you like me to have that recalibrated, too?" she asked, but she was smiling as she said it, and Tony turned to Steve and said, "Is she sassing me?"

Steve did nothing but rub his back.

"OK, sweetums, then you're not six-two because there's only five inches difference between us, and five inches on that would be—"

"Six-one," Steve said, flat and with just a little bit of smugness. "Maybe there's a little more than five inches between us."

"Whatever," he muttered while the nurse laughed a little and motioned for them to follow her into the exam room.

Steve rubbed his back once more, and Tony sighed heavily and rolled his eyes once more but followed over to the room.

Yep. It was an exam room.

The colors were more stereotypically feminine than what he was used to, but there was an exam table (with... _oh, god_ …stirrups) and a sink and a counter with various tongue depressors and swabs and implements and gloves and other things he didn't recognize right off the bat. There were informational posters lining the wall — cross sections of various parts of the female anatomy and a fetal development chart that showed the various stages of gestation.

Fuck, fetuses really did look like little alien creatures, didn't they?

The nurse pointed to the hard vinyl exam table, the vinyl done up in a powder lavender-y type of color, and said, "OK, if you can take off all your clothes and set them on that chair there. Then put that smock over you. The top leave open in the front. The bottom put over your lap. The doctor will be in to see you shortly."

She left with a smile and closed the door behind her, and Tony stared after the door for a good, long minute before he said, " _What_ did she just tell me to do?"

"Tony, it's routine."

"The hell it is."

"Honey—"

But Tony just went over to the exam table and picked up the paper smocks that had been left there for him. "Wait, I'm supposed to take off all my clothes in front of a stranger and put _this_ on?"

He looked up to meet Steve's eyes, and he expected sympathy and understanding but instead got—

"Didn't JARVIS just congratulate you on five years of no public nudity?"

" _Steven_ —"

"Honey!" he said with a laugh and reached out to take Tony's hands in his. "It's fine. It's no big deal. It happens every day. No one's going to take advantage of you. No one's going to do anything without your consent. And if anything does happen, I'm here, OK?"

He tilted his head forward a little, his blue gaze locked into Tony's brown, and squeezed his hands ever so gently. Tony, however, just huffed out a breath.

"The sooner you get this done, the sooner you get it over with," Steve said.

Tony stared into his cerulean eyes, and knowing he wasn't getting out of this, he frowned a little and said, "And you'll be right here the entire time?"

"Wild horses couldn't drag me away."

He exhaled an annoyed breath and said, "Fine."

Steve let go of his hands, and Tony began the arduous process of getting changed into the stupid paper gown. He stripped down, folding his clothes into a neat pile to set on the chair, while Steve busied himself reading the various informational posters on the walls, hands shoved into his pockets and a look of almost wonder spread over his face.

"It's a breast, Steve," Tony said as he threaded his arms into the gown. "You should know what they look like. You've fondled mine enough."

"It's not that," he said as he moved from gazing over a poster of a cross-section of the female breast to one showing the placement of various parts of the female reproductive system in relation to a full-term fetus. "It's just how… _open_ all this information is nowadays." He turned back to Tony and added, "Back in my day a fella wouldn't be welcome at this kind of appointment."

Tony just 'humphed' a little as he tried to get the bottom of the gown situated so that it would cover him. OK, yeah, sure, he'd had his share of sexcapades, some of which had even been caught on camera, but somehow that was…different. That was his own choice, and yeah, OK, looking back maybe he wasn't _proud_ of what he'd done, but at least it had been by his choice, and at least he'd had a dick at the time.

Figuring he'd gotten it, he hopped up onto the table and sat, the paper of the gown crinkling against the paper sheet that covered the table. "Yeah, well," he said and hugged his arms tight around himself. It was only Steve in the room with him, but there was no telling who could walk through that door at any second. "There's a reason they call them the 'dark ages,' babe."

Steve shot him a wry smile. "I don't think the forties were considered the dark ages."

Tony made a 'hmm' sound but said nothing, and Steve went back to reading another poster, this time on breast feeding.

"You know, you really don't have to read those," Tony said.

"They have good information on them," Steve replied. "You should be reading these more than I should."

"Yeah? What makes you think I'm going to be _in_ this body long enough to even breast feed? Jesus Christ, did those words just come out of my mouth?"

He made a face as he thought about what he'd just said, and Steve said, "What makes you think you _won't?_ "

"Excuse me?"

"What makes you think you _won't_ be in that body long enough to breast feed?"

Truthfully, Tony didn't know. He was laboring under the assumption — OK, maybe not the best word choice there considering his condition — that he would go back to his normal body as soon as this…job of his was through, but truth be told, there was no way to know that that was even the case. Would he just turn back automatically? Would Esmeralda have to turn him back? Would she even _want_ to turn him back? Would she think it would be funny to leave him like this? He really didn't know.

So, instead, he said, "What makes you think I'd even _want_ to breast feed?"

Steve glanced back at him. "It is the best option — for both baby and mother."

Tony blinked at him. " _What_ did you just call me?"

Steve had the decency to look a _little_ sheepish. "Well, I mean, you _are_ the mother, aren't you? I mean, you're a dame— _woman_. And you—" He motioned at him like that explained everything. " _You know_."

"I'm knocked up?"

Steve exhaled a disappointed sigh. "Do you have to say it that way?"

"How else should I say it? I got a bun in the oven? The rabbit died? Up the duff? Or how about 'in the family way'? That one at least sounds somewhat classy."

"Can't you just say 'pregnant'?"

Tony made another 'hmm' sound and said, "Yeah, let's have this conversation again when _you're_ the one sitting here naked under a paper gown on a table that has fucking _stirrups_ built into it."

Steve walked over and stood beside Tony, and he put a gentle hand to Tony's side and rubbed it then bent down a little and kissed Tony's forehead. Tony closed his eyes at the feel of Steve's soft, warm lips against his forehead, Steve's hand firm and possessive on his side. He hummed a little, this time in contentment, and Steve chuckled and turned his head some to rub his cheek against Tony's forehead.

"Mmm… I love it when you purr like that. Lets me know I'm doing the right thing."

"I do not _purr_."

Steve hummed then said, "Yeah, you do," and moved his arms to wrap them around Tony. Tony went with it, finding safety, security, and pleasure in being wrapped up in Steve's arms.

"Yeah, well, it's your own fault. You bring it out of me, you fucking sap."

"Oh, don't even try to pretend you don't like it, you big faker."

"Tolerate it, Steven. I tolerate it."

Steve snorted a laugh. "Yeah, sure you do," he said and had just turned his head to press another kiss against Tony's forehead when a knock came to the door and Doctor Ganford walked in, again all comforting smiles but with tablet in hand.

"All right," she said and took a seat on one of those low stools with wheels on it. "Let's see here." She swiped at some screens on her tablet. "I just want to go over your medical history here so we know what we're looking at." She shot a pointed look at Tony. "Your _real_ medical history. Don't just make one up."

He scoffed and said, "Yeah, well, that's kind of hard to give you seeing as this _isn't_ exactly the body I've had for my entire life. I mean, yeah, some of the moles are in the same spot— Steve can attest to that."

Steve just stood beside him, arms folded, and nodded.

"But I don't have the right scars I'm supposed to have, and there's the little matter of being, you know, an entirely different _sex_."

But the doctor didn't waver in her sunny attitude. She merely said, "Well, how about we just go over some of the usual stuff? I see you…" She frowned at whatever she saw on her tablet. "I see you filled out _some_ of your forms." She was silent a moment as she scrolled through, and her lips quirked into a slight smile. She glanced up at Tony and said with a touch of amusement in her voice, "'Asshole' isn't an actual medical condition."

"What?" Steve murmured, but Tony leaned forward like he was trying to get a better view of what the doctor was seeing on her tablet and said, "Wait, I didn't actually mean to write that."

"So, then I can just presume you only meant to put 'alcoholic'?"

"Yeah," Tony said with a less-than-enthused sigh. "There's a tendency towards that in my family. I _may_ have had some, uh, past issues with it. And before you ask about anything else, I mean, yeah, in my _other_ body I did have that whole thing with palladium poisoning, which I did not see listed as an option anywhere on any of the forms, and I had an arc reactor jammed into my chest for about five years, which, again, I did not see listed as an option anywhere on the forms. Then the various surgeries associated with that, etcetera, etcetera, which I didn't list because, again, different body. I don't seem to _have_ those scars in this one, and I don't know why. But anyway my parents? I don't know. They died in a car accident. My father liked to hit the bottle once the clock struck nine every morning. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you."

But she just nodded, typing and swiping as she listened, then turned her attention to Steve. "And let's see what we have about the father here."

"Wait, what makes you think he's the father?" Tony asked, but Steve shot him a sour look then turned to the doctor.

"Oh, 'Roger Stevens,' I see." She flashed Steve a knowing smile then turned back to the tablet. She laughed a little and said, "Well, I guess that's a fitting birth date, and— oh! Team…captain."

"I didn't _lie_ ," Tony said.

"I guess not," she said with a laugh. "Not much here about any genetic predispositions." She glanced up at Steve. "Would you mind if I asked a little about your history? Your, ah, _partner_ didn't provide that much information."

"Yeah, 'bubonic plague' wasn't an option," Tony muttered, but Steve blew out a breath and said, "Well, my ma got hit with TB. That's what did her in. Dad died in the war. Mustard gas. Never met him."

The doctor nodded, typing and swiping again, and murmured, "The girls in the office are going to have fun with this one."

"I thought you said—" Tony began to say, but the doctor shook her head.

"No, there's nothing to worry about. You're in here under assumed names. They're just going to think someone was pulling my leg and I was too gullible not to believe it." She looked back up at Steve and said, "What about your medical history? Ailments, surgeries, allergies—"

"Uh," he said and scratched at his forehead. "Where do you want to start?"

"Wherever you'd like," she replied, and Steve nodded and took a breath then began to list out every single ailment, malady, and issue that had plagued him from birth to the age of twenty-five. The doctor at one point asked him to slow down and then repeat the last several as she'd missed them in trying to set them up in her system, shaking her head and marveling at the list of conditions.

"Hey," Tony said and glanced up at him. "How in the world did you swing _not_ getting hit with polio?"

Steve shrugged. "Dunno. Try not to think about that too much."

"Why not?"

"Afraid it just hasn't had a chance to hit me yet."

"Well, don't worry," Tony said and reached out to pat his arm. "That serum you've got flowing through your veins will beat the ever-living shit out of it if it tries anything."

The doctor made a 'hmm' sound and said, "Is that something… I mean, I'm sure you don't know. Bruce didn't seem to have an answer for it, either."

"What?" Tony asked.

"Well," she said and set the tablet on her lap a moment as she focused her attention on Steve and Tony, "how the serum might affect, well, _you_." She nodded at Tony. "I see you checked 'none' for birth control."

"Yeah, part of the reason I'm even in this predicament to begin with."

She chuckled a little and said, "Well, what I mean to ask is have they ever determined that the serum is present in bodily fluids? Saliva? Blood? Semen?"

Steve tightened his folded arms and shrugged. "If they ever figured that out, they never told me."

"I think they tried to figure it out," Tony said. "They took samples, didn't they?"

"Blood," Steve replied. "Never asked for anything else. Didn't offer it."

"So, the serum is an unknown quantity in this equation," the doctor said but didn't type anything down. "It could have no effect, or it could have a great deal of effect." She nodded her understanding then said, "I think that might be something you should ask Bruce to look into — for your own information as well as your own safety."

"Safety?" Steve asked, almost like he was a little insulted by her words.

"Well, as a precaution," she clarified. "You don't know how it might affect mother or child—"

"Yeah, about that 'mother' thing—"

"Tony—"

"Steve—"

"In this case, you _are_ technically the mother."

"That doesn't mean I want to hear it every time I turn around."

"The only reason you hear it every time you turn around is because you're constantly denying it."

"I'm not _denying_ it. I just don't want to hear about it."

"All right," the doctor said, cutting into their bickering, "I have a few more questions for you." She picked up her tablet again and began to look over it. "Now, can I presume you have been continuing to have sexual relations with each other during the course of this pregnancy? I see you did check that you're currently sexually active."

Tony just tightened his arms around himself, and Steve said, "Is that a bad thing?"

"No! No, not at all. It's very _good_ , and in many cases, you can continue to have sex right up until the baby is born, so long as there aren't any complications. Have you noticed any complications? Any irregular bleeding? Any pain?"

"Bleeding? No," Tony said. "Pain? Do you mean _intentional_ pain or—"

The doctor put her hand up. "I don't need to know specific bedroom activities. I just need to know if you've experienced any pelvic pain during intercourse."

"Who says we keep that shit to the bedroom?"

" _Tony!_ "

Tony rolled his eyes and waved off Steve's embarrassed concern then decided to humor the doctor. "No," he said. "Not that I've noticed."

"OK, good." She nodded and typed something into her tablet then set it aside. "That takes care of that for now." She got up and grabbed a blood pressure cuff. "Now, just relax," she said and put it around his arm.

Tony tried to, taking a deep breath and blowing it out and trying to calm himself with equations and such as the cuff tightened around his arm. He tried to ignore the feeling, tried to ignore what the doctor was doing, and just concentrate on the equations he saw floating around his head until the cuff loosened completely and the doctor said, "Good," and removed the cuff. "So far, so good. You're doing very well."

She then took the stethoscope and began to listen to his heart, over the chest, then over the back and telling him to take deep breaths, and when he'd passed that test, she said, "OK, now I just need you to lie back. I'm going to do a breast exam."

"Look, I just had one the other day," he said, and Steve murmured a quiet and embarrassed, " _Tony_ ," but he ignored that and continued, "I'm fine."

The doctor shot an understanding smile at Steve but turned her attention back to Tony and said, "While I'm sure your husband was very thorough—"

" _Ridiculously_ thorough. You didn't find anything, did you, babe?"

" _Tony_ ," he murmured again, the apples of his cheeks tingeing pink.

The doctor just chuckled and said, "Again, I'm sure he was very thorough about it, but I do need to do one for the record."

Tony sighed, and the doctor urged him to pick his legs up as she pulled the table extender out.

"Just a couple minutes. I promise," the doctor said, and Tony, making sure to keep his legs together, lay back down on the table and lifted each arm when he was instructed to do so, the doctor feeling around each breast for…reasons, he supposed. She probably knew what she was doing. Bruce had recommended her, after all.

"Don't worry," he told Steve, "she doesn't hold a candle to you. You're still my favorite fondler." "Thanks," Steve said, flat but amused all the same.

"Good, very good," she said when she was finished, and Tony sat right back up.

"OK, well, this was fun. Glad we spent this time together. Babe? If you could get my clothes for me, that would be fantastic."

Steve just looked at him, flat and unimpressed, while the doctor smiled yet again and said, "I know you're uneasy about this, but I will need to examine you. Especially in light of your… _unique_ …circumstances, I'd like to make sure everything's as it should be."

"Yeah, well, you don't really need to do it that way, do you?" He nodded at the stirrups. "And I mean, you want to talk about lack of consent."

" _Tony_ —" Steve murmured.

"Really? Oh, well, if you think it's not such a big deal, why don't you hop up on the table instead and spread your legs wide, huh?"

Steve just gave him that patented _you're saying something stupid again_ look. "Tony."

" _Steve_."

" _Please_ just put your legs in the stirrups and let the doctor examine you. I'll be right here the entire time. I promise."

He stared right into Steve's unwavering steadfastness, and he adjusted himself on the table and said, "Fine," and threw his legs up and over into the stirrups. He slid down a bit to better position himself, and he threw a look back at Steve and said, "I bet that's a sentence you never would have thought you'd ever say to me back in Stuttgart."

"It's not something I ever thought I would have said to you _last week_."

Tony lay back down on the table, making sure to keep his legs together, and the doctor chuckled a little and said, "You can relax your legs."

"They are relaxed."

"I need you to open them a little bit."

"No, I think you're good."

He looked up at where Steve stood above and to the side of him and watched as he shook his head and closed his eyes.

"Again," Tony said, "you're more than welcome to trade places here with me."

"Honey, you know if I could, I would."

"Yeah, no, I don't think so. I think you're only saying that because you know there's absolutely no chance of you being in this position, so you can offer to switch places all you want. It's not going to happen. I, however—"

" _Natasha_ ," the doctor said, a pointed tone to her voice, "please relax your legs. The sooner you do it, the sooner this can all be over with."

Tony glanced up at Steve to see if he believed that to be the case, and when Steve nodded his approval at him, Tony sighed and did what was instructed of him, closing his eyes and telling himself it would all be over soon.

Truth be told, the pelvic exam wasn't the most offensive thing ever to be done to him. It didn't hurt, and it was over pretty quickly, and the doctor assured him everything was as it should be.

"I mean," she said as Tony sat up again, "from everything I can see here, you're pretty much the perfect model of a woman, though _ideally_ this isn't the best time to schedule your _first_ prenatal appointment."

"Yeah, well, if it wasn't for this lunkhead here," he said and jerked a thumb at Steve, "I wouldn't have had one at all."

"Well, I guess it's a good thing that you listened to him."

Steve snorted out a laugh that he tried to cover up with a cough, and Tony shot a look at him and said, "Something to contribute?"

He shook his head, but he was still trying to keep from laughing. "Not a thing."

"To be fair, I _did_ listen to you."

"Of course you did."

"Are you humoring me? I _did_ listen to you. I _did_ make this stupid appointment, didn't I? I _did_ go to it."

"Yes, honey, you did," Steve said and patted his back.

Tony looked to the doctor. "OK, I want you to bear witness to this. This, right here? This is what I put up with all day, every day. I don't want you leaving here under the assumption that this guy is as wholesome as apple pie. No, he's a jerk. He's a sarcastic pain in the ass. He is the very definition of a troll."

But the doctor just smiled at him and said, "Truth be told, I wish more of the couples I saw come in here were like you."

"Yeah? That is a _terrible_ thing to wish on any— Wait, in what way are you talking?"

She just hugged her tablet to her chest some and said, "Well, you care a lot about each other."

Tony cocked an eyebrow. "You got _that_ from all the shit we've been saying to each other? Haven't we been busting on each other the entire time?"

She nodded at him like he'd proven her point. "But you're comfortable enough with each other _to_ tease each other and not take offense to it. I can't say that for many of the couples I see come in here. Anyway, I would like to see you again closer to the time of delivery—"

"Ugh, please don't remind me."

" _Tony_ —"

"Hey! I thought I was supposed to be 'Natasha' in here." He looked at the doctor. "Isn't that what you said? He's not following the rules!"

But the doctor merely laughed and said, "I'd like you to have an ultrasound. And I'd like to order some blood and urine tests just to make sure everything _is_ as good as it looks. I know what you _think_ you are, but trust me, that body is completely female, and I'd just like to make sure it's as perfect as it appears to be."

Tony just sighed. "Whatever. Where do I go for this shit? Can I just have JARVIS do it and send it to you?"

"Whatever makes you most comfortable."

"You're not having JARVIS do it," Steve muttered.

"What? No, the doctor just said—"

"I know what the doctor just said, but I also know how _you_ work. You'll have JARVIS mock something up and send it over."

Tony faked a gasp. "Steven! Such a spurious accusation to level upon the mother of your chi—"

Steve just looked at him, daring Tony to deny the claim. Tony held his ground and stared right back, but goddamn it, that Stare of Disapproval was too much for even him to overcome.

"Fine. Bruce is even more of a stickler for this sort of shit than you are. How 'bout I have him do it? Does that meet with your approval?"

"It does."

Tony just caught the doctor's eye. "You see what I have to put up with?"

But she did nothing but smile at them and say, "Do you have any questions for me?"

Tony shook his head. "Nope, I'm good!" he said, and Steve shot him a _look_ before he turned to the doctor and said, "If we have any questions in the future—"

"Please don't hesitate to call me. I'll leave the information with Serena. You can have my cell number. Also, there's some pamphlets I want you to read and some information we hand out to all our maternity patients. I think it would be good for _both_ of you to familiarize yourselves with this. I'll leave the paperwork you need for the tests and the ultrasound with Serena, too."

When neither one of them did anything but nod their understanding to what she'd said, she smiled once more and said, "It was very nice to meet you both."

She let herself out of the room, and Steve stood beside him and folded his arms and said, "Was it that bad?"

"Well," he muttered, "it wasn't the _worst_ thing that's ever happened to me."

"Well, at least there's that," Steve said, and Tony pointed a firm finger at the chair. "What? What's that for?"

"You damned well know what it's for," he said and pointed a little harder at the chair where his clothes were neatly folded and placed.

Steve just shook his head, but he dropped his arms and went over to grab the clothes. He went to hand them over, but he held back at the last second and instead pressed his face close to Tony's. Tony rolled his eyes at the puckered lips, but he still kissed his idiot of a husband anyway and received the bounty of clothes in return.

"Goddamned sap," he muttered and went about getting dressed.

"Am I still sleeping on the couch tonight?"

"I'll think about it."


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some more really, really, really bad porn in this one. No, I mean it. It's really bad. My previous attempts were eloquent works of poetry compared to this. It's also gets into a bit of the Dom/sub stuff, though nothing as hardcore as I've seen in some other fics.
> 
> Skip the middle third of the story if you want to miss it. The other parts should be OK.
> 
> In regards to the porn, it definitely delves into 'encouraged feminization'? Is that what I want to call it? Basically, Steve asks Tony if he can call him and treat him as 'Antonia,' and Tony, after some thought, says 'yes.' If that's not your thing, definitely skip this.

* * *

Almost as soon as they arrived home, Steve had to turn right back around and head out with the team to take down what turned out to be another Hydra cell, and as Steve went to apologize and remind Tony that, no, he didn't feel comfortable having him out there, Tony just grinned and said, "You know, after my freak-out, I suddenly realized I don't _have_ to actually physically be there with you guys."

"What do you mean?"

"I can control the suit remotely."

He dragged Steve down to the lab over his protests that he really had to go get changed and get on the 'jet, but Tony just pulled him over to his worktable and picked up the virtual interface he'd been playing with for a while and slid it over his head.

"Here, watch," he said and dimmed the lights to get the right contrast so he could see the specs just like he was looking at them from inside the suit. The newest Mark powered up, and he maneuvered it over to Steve and had it stand right beside him, hands on its hips and head tilted slightly forward in the way that Steve usually stood.

"That's great, Tony," he said and Tony heard the hesitance in his voice, "but I remember what happened the last time you sent that out—"

"Not this one. This is a different one. This one won't splatter in front of a semi. Come on, Steve! This way, I get to have my cake and eat it, too! I stay here, in the comfort of my own lab while you guys go out and deal with the shitty stuff."

"But I thought you like being able to zoom around in the armor?"

"Eh," he said with a shrug, which made the Iron Man shrug as well, "there's a kind of a thrill you get from firing a repulsor at some asshole Hydra agent in person, but, whatever. Not the end of the world if I don't. Steve, I can still be Iron Man and still be back here safe so you're not worried about me getting hurt in the field. _Please_."

He waited one long, painful moment before Steve said, "All right," and Tony grinned and jumped up to kiss him, but he forgot that he was still controlling the armor, and instead, Iron Man grabbed Steve by the face and smacked his facial slit against Steve's mouth, and Steve made a slightly strangled sound before he pulled back and rubbed his nose and said, "Maybe you might want to watch how you handle that thing."

"I'm sorry," Tony said and disconnected the power, the lights coming back up again. He went over and reached up on his toes and kissed Steve's nose before he kissed his lips, and Steve put his hands to Tony's hips and rubbed his thumbs over the cloth-covered flesh. Tony saw a funny look come into his eyes, something kind of abashed and wistful, and he tilted his head to the side and said, "What?"

Steve wouldn't meet his gaze. "Nothing."

" _What?_ "

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Steve? Tell me, Steve. What? What are you thinking?"

He noticed that Steve had flushed a little like he was embarrassed, his lips thinning and his eyes looking everywhere but at Tony, and he finally said, "Just…thinking."

"About?"

"Something."

"Something what?"

"Something to come home to."

Tony let that sink in a moment, remembering then that no matter what, Steve would always be a soldier fighting the war, and he reached up and snaked his arms around Steve's neck and said, "God, you're such a sap, old man."

But Steve just leaned in and kissed him hard, bruising, his hands digging into the flesh of Tony's hips possessively, and Tony went a little weak-kneed as he fell into him, handing Steve the power over him once again.

But that was totally his choice.

Steve pulled away and tried to right Tony a little bit, and he let go of Tony's hips and said, "See you on the 'jet," before he turned and made his way out of the lab.

Tony grinned and went back over to his workstation, and he put the apparatus back on and dimmed the lights to pull up the interface and said, "OK, let's go freak the others out."

~*~

"Whoa, Stark!" Barton said as the Iron Man armor clomped up the gate. "Uh…Cap know what you're doing?"

"He's aware of it," he said, the armor giving the impression of folding its arms.

Barton just sighed and rolled his eyes and said, "I need a vacation. After this, I'm getting out of here for a bit, OK? Tell your husband, if he's still talking to you after this."

"He is," he said as Natasha and Thor followed on. Thor just kept on walking like he hadn't noticed anything while Natasha held back and raised an eyebrow at him. The armor merely stood expectantly and gave the impression of looking around, and she smiled a little and murmured, "Spoiled," and continued further into the 'jet.

Bruce and Steve brought up the rear, finally, and Barton called from the pilot's seat, "Hey, Cap, you might want to do a head count. You know, make sure we're all here — everyone that's supposed to be."

Steve frowned and glanced around, and he said, "Looks like it," while Thor suddenly realized that the Iron Man armor was standing there awaiting orders. He turned to Steve and said, "Did you unground our Man of Iron, Steven?"

Steve shot a look at the Iron Man before he turned to Thor and said, "I never grounded Iron Man."

"Really?" Barton called back. "That's not how I remember it."

"I told Tony I didn't want him in the field until everything was put right again, but I didn't say anything about Iron Man."

"There's a difference?" Natasha asked.

Steve merely nodded and scanned over something on a tablet while Bruce said, "Uh, but how is he _here?_ " and pointed to the Iron Man.

Steve didn't even look up from the tablet. "Tony?"

"Magic," he replied, servos whirring as he dropped his arms and addressed the group.

"Nice try," Natasha said. "We know what you think about magic."

"Science," he corrected. "I don't actually have to be in the suit to control it. You losers are currently readying for takeoff while I get to sit here in my lab and stuff my face full of ice cream and cheeseburgers."

"You cannot eat and control that suit at the same time," Barton said.

"Wanna bet?"

"Tony, don't eat and fly at the same time," Steve said without looking.

"Fine," Tony said, "but only 'cause I have the lights down, and if I'm not careful, DUM-E will try pouring motor oil over my ice cream again because he thought it looked like caramel sauce, and I can't see it well enough to judge it before eating it."

"Sounds like this has happened before," Bruce said.

"A few times— Hey! Look, you're in your workshop for going on your fiftieth hour, you stop caring about that sort of thing. You just eat whatever's put in front of you, OK? Could be a filet mignon; could be a boiled boot. You eat it. You don't think about it."

"Cap, I want you to think long and hard about this," Barton said. "That is, technically, for all intents and purposes, the mother of your child talking."

Steve just glanced in Barton's direction and smiled slightly but didn't say anything.

As battles went, it wasn't all that noteworthy. Go in, get the bad guys, get whatever tech they might have, hand them over to the proper authorities, and hop back on the plane for late-night pizza.

Wait, no, that's how Tony _thought_ it would go. It actually went a little more like this:

They went in and tangled with the bad guys. He took a couple of bad hits to the suit, which were going to be a pisser to fix, Barton got singed on the arm, which was more painful than actually harmful to him, Natasha almost broke her leg but instead just ended up spraining her wrist, Hulk went a little rampage-y and almost didn't respond to Natasha's lullaby, which wasn't nearly as effective as usual because she was cringing through the ache of her wrist that she was convinced at the time was broken, and Thor…scratched his cheek. Fucking space god.

But then there was Steve. Poor, darling Steve. Steve didn't get hit, and he didn't get hurt. Steve got something worse than that.

Tony was in the middle of tangling with Hydra agents, so he could only get the story from listening in on the comms, but evidently the prodigal friend showed up in the middle of the firefight once more, and Steve did his usual dumb-fuck thing of dropping everything to chase after him. Tony didn't have the opportunity to talk him down because he was busy with his own battles, and he only was able to overhear Steve attempting to talk sense to Barnes once again — Barnes, who wasn't even supposed to be there as far as they'd known.

But this time was different. He could tell from the way Steve was talking that something was different about his interactions with Barnes this time, like there was a familiarity there, like Barnes maybe — just maybe — knew him. Recognized him. Was aware of who he really was.

"Steve, you pull that helmet off again in the middle of a fight, I'm going to staple it to your head," Tony said, but he was too far away in the field for his words to have much weight, and Steve ignored them and instead kept up his pleading with Barnes.

" _Cap_ ," Barton said, " _Nat's down. You're closest to her_."

" _I'm fine_ ," came Natasha's gritted voice over the comm. " _Steve, you have eyes on Barnes?_ "

" _Yeah_ ," Steve said, his voice broken, and in that same broken voice, he begged, " _Bucky,_ please."

But evidently, Bucky didn't, and Steve swore angrily under his breath and, presumably, took off running. But instead of Tony saying anything, it was Natasha, who grunted in what sounded like disguised pain and said, " _Steve, where are you going?_ "

" _I've got him_ ," Steve said. " _I've got him_."

" _Cap, let him go_ ," Barton said. " _It's not worth it_."

" _No, I've got him_ ," Steve said, panting a bit like he was running. " _I just need_ — shit."

Tony heard an 'oof' sound like Steve had hit against something, and the next thing he heard was Steve's voice pleading, " _Bucky, you know me. We can help you._ Please."

And then, through the repulsor blasts of his own firefight, Tony heard the sounds of a tussle, and there was a lull enough in the action for him to hear Barnes's voice come through Steve's comm — an angry, animalistic growl that sounded a hell of a lot like, " _Leave me the hell alone_ _, Steve_."

"Fuck!" Tony cried out. "Where's Cap? Anyone got eyes on him?"

" _I see him_ ," Barton said. " _Got Barnes sitting on top of him— Not in that way, Stark. Don't worry. Looks like he's about to let him have it with that metal arm of his_."

"And the stupid son-of-a-bitch is just laying there, isn't he? Ready, willing, and able to take it."

" _I can hear you two, you know_ ," Steve said. " _I know what I'm doing._ "

"Steve, you willingly take a hit from that bastard, I'm divorcing you."

" _He's not going to hit me_."

" _Kinda looks like he's thinking about it_ ," Barton said.

Through Steve's comm, he heard something in muttered Russian, and then Steve exhaled a relieved breath. Tony presumed that meant Barnes had dropped his arm.

"Yeah, really sounds like you believed that," Tony muttered, but Steve seemingly ignored him and went back to pleading with Bucky.

" _Bucky, please, don't do this. We can help you. We want to help you. We— I'm sorry, Buck. I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry— I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me_."

Tony again heard something muttered in Russian, and he was able to fly the suit over the battlefield in time to see Barnes get up from where he sat crushing Steve's chest and simply walk away. Tony did a three-point landing beside Steve just as he'd begun to sit up, and he kept the kneeling position as Steve sat and stared forlornly in the direction Barnes was currently walking. Not running, not sprinting, not darting like he was trying to evade capture. Just walking, slowly, like he couldn't be bothered.

"Babe?" he murmured, and Steve turned and looked directly at the lighted eye-slits of the suit, crystalline blue irises lined with pain and grief.

He kept the contact for a moment before he broke away with a disgusted shake of his head and got to his feet. Tony righted the suit and stood beside him, and he put a hand to Steve's shoulder and gave it a squeeze as he said, "He'll find you. When he's ready, he'll come find you."

Steve snorted out a bitter laugh. "Yeah? Don't bet your life on it."

" _Wait, hang on_ ," Barton said over the comm line. " _Is Cap just…walking away? Is he giving up?_ "

"Barton, say one more word, and I'll strangle you with your bow. Understood?" Tony snapped and began to follow Steve back away from the field. "Babe?" he said and joined in-step with Steve. "It's not the end of the world."

But Steve just shook his head and said, "He walked away. He saw me. He knew me. And he walked away."

"Honey, you've got to give him time. He's not going to snap back to his old self overnight. Hell, he might never snap back to his old self."

Steve stopped in his tracks and turned to stare accusingly at Tony, and Tony stopped and turned so it gave the impression he was staring right back at him.

"And deep down you know I'm right," he added. "Honey, I know. I get it, and I know, but you can't just expect everything to go back to the way things were before… Not immediately. Not yet. Not right now. It's going to take time. You know how you had to figure some things out when you came out of the ice? Imagine how he feels. Your life passed you by. His life… His life hasn't entirely been in the service of all that's good and just like yours has — and that's through no fault of his own."

Steve just stared at him a moment longer before he turned and made his way back through the field, and Tony sighed out a breath and joined his side again.

"Why didn't you chase after him?" he asked after a moment.

"What good would it have done?" Steve muttered. "He knows who I am. He knows… And he still walked away. He chose to walk away." He shook his head some, in disbelief, in disgust, or maybe some combination of the two. "I can't stop him from choosing to walk away."

"What did he say to you? I know you know _some_ Russian."

"I don't know," he said a little too quickly, and Tony could tell from his tone that he was lying through his teeth. It wasn't so much that he didn't know. He more didn't want to face what had been said, and Tony contemplated this a moment before he said, "J, switch me and the Cap over to the private comm line."

" _Aw, man!_ " Barton whined. " _Can't you two wait until_ —"

Barton's voice cut out as JARVIS switched off the public line, and Tony reached out and grabbed hold of Steve's wrist to stop him. "Hey," he said softly and waited for Steve to turn to him. "Tell me what I can do."

"Nothing you can do," Steve said but wouldn't look at him.

"I know I can't bring Barnes back for you without dragging him kicking and screaming and snarling and probably getting knifed, but what about _you?_ What can I do for _you?_ To make this better for _you?_ "

Steve just shook his head. "I don't—"

"Nope," Tony said and put his other hand on Steve's shoulder. "Not good enough," he said and rubbed it gently. "Tell me something I can do to make this better. To make you forget about this."

Steve swallowed and finally let his gaze drift up to the lighted eye-slits. "I want you."

Tony nodded. "OK, we can— Well, not right at the moment seeing as I'm pretty fucking far away, unless you want to just do something with the suit—"

Steve shook his head quickly and swallowed again. "No, _you_. I want— I need you. I want… I want to play."

Tony dropped his hand in surprise and sucked in an audible breath. "You know we haven't done that since—"

"If you don't want to, we don't have to—" Steve said quickly, like he was backing down from the idea because he was afraid he'd pushed the limit too far.

"Whoa! Hey!" Tony said and let go of his wrist to put both hands on his shoulders. "I didn't say I didn't. I just said we haven't, you know, done anything like that since I got Rule 63'd. Is that… I mean, is that something you'd… _like?_ "

He watched as Steve raked his gaze over the sheen of the Iron Man armor then nodded. "Yeah," he finally said. "Would you? If you don't want to do it, I don't want to do it."

"Why would you think this is something that would gross me out?"

Steve shrugged. "I don't know. I just… I know how uncomfortable you've been and that's sort of something you have to be comfortable in your skin for—"

"Steve, babe, look at me," he said and shook Steve gently by the shoulders. He waited for Steve to meet the gaze of the eye-slits again and said, "I am _comfortable_ with you— _No!_ That's a lie because that would imply I am merely OK with what we do. I am not just 'OK' with it. I like it. I love it. I have maybe gotten to know my hand very well while I replay it the next morning in the shower. And I don't just mean in my other body. I mean this one, too. I… I want to do it, Steve. I want to play like this. I want you to do what you do best."

Steve swallowed and nodded. "As soon as I get home?"

"The second you walk in the door."

Steve nodded again. "OK."

"OK," Tony said, and, forgetting himself again, went to kiss Steve on the lips, but Steve pulled back at the last moment and said, "Hey, watch it with that thing, wouldja?"

"Just for you, babe," he said. "Come on. I've gotta get this suit on the 'jet so I can power it down and go get ready."

Steve frowned at him. "Get ready?"

Tony grinned, even though he knew Steve couldn't see it. "You'll see."

~*~

He'd been thinking about this for a while, if he was being honest with himself.

It had been a while since he and Steve had 'played.' It wasn't that either one was hesitant to; it was just that they never seemed to find the time, and it wasn't the sort of thing they liked to rush.

Especially Steve. Steve _really_ liked to take his time drawing out Tony's pleasure, making him writhe, making him plead, making him beg Steve to let him come already.

He shivered. Fuck, just the _thought_ of it was enough to get him wet.

But they had never done it when Tony was like this. Not that first week he had been turned into a woman, and not in any of the time since he'd been turned into one again. To be honest, he wasn't sure Steve would even _want_ to because, well, Tony's parts weren't exactly the same at the moment, and though he understood and knew that Steve found him attractive this way, maybe Steve wouldn't be able to bring himself to dominate female!Tony as easily as he did male!Tony. Because as progressive-minded as Steve was, there was still some of that old-time chivalry left in him, and not that Steve thought that women were all delicate little flowers that needed to be protected from the big, bad world, but Tony feared there was a part of him that would be afraid to push it too far because, well, he could hurt him. Because as much as Tony pissed and moaned and made sure everyone knew he was just as capable with two 'X' chromosomes as he was with one 'X' and one 'Y,' Tony wasn't as physically strong in this form as he was in the other, and this form was just that much slighter. Oh, also the whole thing about being…ugh, _pregnant_.

Basically, Tony couldn't physically hold his own as well against Steve in this form.

But Tony had actually been looking for an opportunity to try it because, well, he was horny as fuck, Steve was amazing at driving him mad with pleasure, and, well, he wanted to.

So, after a short nap (because he was fucking _tired_ after that fight, all right, and he hadn't even actually _been_ in it), he showered and shaved and plucked and dried his hair and slipped into a red- and-gold silk and lace negligée. He rolled a pair of stockings up his legs and hooked them to the garter belt then watched a couple YouTube videos on the proper technique for the makeup style he thought would most impress Steve then stood in front of the bathroom mirror and tried it out on himself — fuck him, he really liked playing with makeup — and was able to come as close to the smoky look he was trying for as he figured he was going to be able to.

And by the time all that was said and done, JARVIS was announcing the arrival of the 'jet, and Tony said, "Have the Iron Man armor escort Steve to the penthouse, please, J."

" _At once, Sir_ ," JARVIS replied, and Tony went into the closet and pulled out the small trunk where they kept their most intimate possessions. He flipped the latches and opened the lid, and he looked over the neat array of toys and implements they used for their play. He picked up the black leather collar, the one with the garnet and yellow topaz gemstone accents, and he brushed his thumb over the jewels and nodded his approval before he reached in and grabbed the leash that went with it. He thought about pulling out some of the other toys, but he figured he'd wait on that. He wasn't even sure Steve would be open to the collar.

Leash and collar in hand, he put the trunk back then ran out of the bedroom and down the steps to the living room, and he dropped the leash on the table and thought briefly about trying to pose in his most alluring, but the 'ding' of the elevator signaled Steve's arrival, and he simply stood beside the couch, hand that held the collar behind his back.

Steve stopped just as soon as he'd stepped off the elevator, the Iron Man armor right behind him, and Tony watched as he swallowed and raked his gaze over the sight before him. Tony had hedged his bets that the look would appeal to Steve, but he hadn't honestly been one hundred percent sure until this very moment.

Tony pulled his hand from behind his back to reveal the black, bejeweled collar he hadn't donned in months, and Steve took in an audible breath as his eyes went from Tony's face down to the small band of leather in his hand.

"Totally up to you," Tony said while Steve stood there and seemingly weighed the pros and cons of what Tony was proposing. "We haven't done this in months, and— To be honest, I wasn't sure it would even be something you would want to do with me like this. Not saying we have to; just saying that if you want to, I am a thousand percent open to it."

Steve, eyes still on the collar, moistened his lips, and he looked up and met Tony's gaze, something hard and predatory almost coming into his eyes. Tony hadn't seen that look in a long time, and it made a shiver run down his spine and something clench in that region he still hadn't figured out a better term than 'pussy' for.

Steve walked over to him, and he took the collar from Tony's hands and turned it over in his own, inspecting it, weighing it, almost like he was buying himself time. When he finally spoke, his voice was so low and so full of want and possession that Tony almost sank to his knees.

"I want… If we do this, I want… I want to make something clear. I want to try something. I put this on you, you're my Antonia Natasha, understand? I know you're still Tony; I know what you still think of yourself as. But if I put this on you, you're my Antonia with everything that comes with it. I call you 'Antonia' or 'Antonia Natasha.' I tell you 'good girl' instead of 'good boy.' I treat you exactly as I would if you had been born this way, which, really isn't that much different than I treat you now, as far as I'm aware, but with this, there's no question. You're 'Antonia.' You're not 'Tony.' If you're OK with that, I'll put this on you. If not, then I won't, and we'll just do what we've been doing, OK?"

Tony swallowed. He hadn't thought about it in that context, hadn't thought that Steve would be so…possessive, of sorts…about it. He'd thought it could just be a fun little bit of play doing something they hadn't done in a while.

But this…

Steve had been thinking about it. This had clearly crossed Steve's mind before. He'd been fantasizing about Tony being his 'Antonia Natasha' — his _woman_ — for a while. He'd been fantasizing about calling him 'Antonia' and telling him 'good girl' when he did something that he approved of. He wanted to treat Tony as a woman, as though he'd actually been born a woman, and that—

That might have been just a bridge too far.

"You want me to be a woman?" he asked, but Steve shook his head.

"No. Not— Just— Just for this. Only if I put this collar on. Otherwise, you're still Tony — you're still _my Tony_ , and you're always going to be _my Tony_ — but just for this, I want to… I want to try it. I want you to be my Antonia. It won't— If you're worried that I'll want you to _always_ be Antonia, I don't. I love _Tony_. I fell in love with _Tony_. I married _Tony_. But I just want… I just want to try this. Once. If you don't like it, we stop immediately. I tell you 'good girl,' and you can't handle that, we stop. I'm not going to force you to do anything you don't want. But I want… I want you to be my Antonia. I want you to _want_ to be my Antonia."

Tony gazed into Steve's earnest expression, crystalline blue eyes that burned with lust and with a plea to trust him. He glanced down to the collar in Steve's hand, and he knew if he agreed to this, there was a very good possibility Steve could be wrong, that he would _want_ Tony to stay Antonia, to make like he was a woman inside and out, no matter how much he insisted to the contrary.

But there was a part of him that throbbed deep down that wanted desperately for Steve to do this, to take him, to call him 'Antonia' and tell him 'good girl' and treat him like the queen, the goddess, that he was starting to see himself as. He'd always felt Steve was holding back with him — since he'd turned into this, anyway — and he wanted to know… He wanted to know what it would be like, what it would feel like, for Steve to take him, to give him everything, to treat him not as a man that was trapped indefinitely in a woman's body but as a person in possession of a female body.

He wanted to be Steve's Antonia.

He looked up again and met Steve's eyes, and he reached up ever so gently and lifted his long, dark hair off his neck and shoulders to allow for Steve to fasten the collar around him. Steve's gaze burned into his, and he stared pointedly at Tony and said, "Are you absolutely sure? Don't do this only because you think I want this."

"Make me yours, Captain," Tony said, purring the words. "Make me your Antonia." That seemed to be all the assurance Steve needed.

He reached around and fastened the collar around Tony's neck, and Tony closed his eyes at the scintillating touch of leather against his throat, those particular muscles of his anatomy clenching once again as Steve finished clasping it. He felt Steve take his wrists and gently pull his arms down to his sides, and after he had, he put his hands on Tony's shoulders and slid them down his arms.

"Where's your leash?" Steve asked, hands back on Tony's shoulders. "Did you bring your leash?"

Tony nodded toward the table, and Steve went over and picked up the leather strap, and he fastened it to the hook on the collar and said, "Ordinarily, in a situation like this, I'd make you crawl up the steps—"

"I still could—" Tony went to say, but Steve leveled him with a look.

"No talking unless I tell you that you're allowed to. Also, I don't want to hurt either one of you," he said and motioned toward the small swell of Tony's abdomen that pushed against the negligée. "I want you to enjoy this as much as I do. I'm not about to hurt you to get my rocks off. I know you enjoy a little bit of pain, but I don't want to do that tonight. I want to drive you mad with want tonight. _That's_ the pain I want you in. I want you dripping and desperate for me to let you come, understand? Say 'Yes, Sir,' if you do."

"Yes, Sir."

"Good girl," he said, and some desperate and needy feeling flooded his veins and made his knees go a little weak at the words. _Good girl_. He was a good girl. He was Steve's good girl. Steve's good Antonia Natasha.

"Now," Steve said and stood behind him again. He felt Steve take his arms and position them behind his back, "did you bring any restraints down with you?"

He shook his head, and Steve kissed his shoulder.

"That's OK. We'll manage," he replied and then nudged his knee in between Tony's legs. "Spread your legs like a good girl, Antonia," he said.

Tony did as told, and he felt Steve reach down and push his underwear aside to insert a finger in him. He gasped in a slight breath, and Steve hummed a little in displeasure and said, "Nowhere near how wet I want you."

He removed his finger and readjusted the panties once again.

"We can fix that," he said, and he came around to the front again and picked up the leash that lay slack over his front. "Follow," he said and gave a little jerk on the leash. "Keep your arms behind your back, and no talking unless I tell you it's OK. Do you understand? Say, 'Yes, Sir' if you do."

"Yes, Sir," he replied, his voice shakier with want than he'd ever felt it.

"Good," Steve said and led him up the steps and over to their bedroom. He closed the door behind them and ordered JARVIS to dim the lights to twenty-five percent. JARVIS complied, and the lights dimmed considerably in the room. Steve let go of the leash, and he ordered Tony to stand still, hands still behind his back, and he went over to the dresser and pulled out two of the scarves they usually used in this kind of play. Tony watched as Steve tossed one onto the bed then twisted the other one around a bit so that it was little more than a thin strap of satin, and he came back over and said, "I'm going to blindfold you now."

He didn't give Tony a chance to respond to that in any way, instead wrapping the soft, silky cloth over his eyes and tying it at the back.

"It really is a shame to do this. I love looking at your eyes, and the makeup looks fantastic." He felt Steve kiss his shoulder. "But I only want you feeling. I don't want you seeing, and I don't want you anticipating, understand?"

He swallowed and nodded. "Antonia? You can tell me."

"Yeah— _yes_ ," he said, stuttering over the word.

"Good girl," Steve said, and Tony felt him leave for a moment before he was back again. "Hold your hands in front of you and put your wrists together."

Tony did exactly as told, and he felt the silken touch of the other scarf wrap around his wrists as Steve bound them together, tight but not anywhere near enough to cut off circulation. He took Tony's bound wrists and gently lowered his arms so that his wrists were resting against his belly. "Stand there," Steve said before Tony felt him move away, and the next thing he thought he heard was the bathroom light click on followed by the sound of running water. He remained standing, blindfolded, his bound wrists a comfortable and yet tantalizing weight against his belly, and in the anticipation of what he knew — or actually _didn't_ know — what was going to happen, he could feel himself getting wetter, muscles clenching while his clit began to fill with blood.

The water shut off, and the light clicked off, and a few moments later, he felt Steve's presence again. He felt a finger stroke down his face, and Steve murmured, "God, you're so beautiful," before he took hold of the leash and began to lead him.

"Trust me," Steve said when he realized Tony was hesitant in his steps. "I'm not gonna let you fall."

He did and allowed Steve to lead him over to what he was pretty sure was the bed. When he was close enough, Steve unhooked the leash from the collar then took his bound wrists and held his arms out straight until he felt the telltale feel of the sheets beneath his fingertips.

"Bend over, Antonia. Good girl," Steve said as he bent over, and Steve pulled him back just a little bit to better position him and pushed his legs apart. "God, you're so good," he murmured as he ran a light hand down Tony's back before he pushed up the thin material of the negligée and then took a gentle hold of his lacy panties and slid them down his legs, exposing him more fully to the cool air of the room. He slid the panties down to his ankles then made him step out of them, leaving the garter and the stockings firmly in place. He hummed a little in appraisal, traced a light finger down one firm cheek and then slapped a hand against it, hard, firm, and possessive. Tony jumped a little and moaned out a gasp, and Steve chuckled a little stroked his fingertips over the stinging flesh and said, "What did I tell you about talking? Your wanton little moans count, too."

Tony bit his lips. Fuck, if he wasn't allowed to moan—

"Been a while since I've done this," Steve said, and Tony heard the click of a bottle top. "But I've read it's good for women, too, so—"

He gasped as he felt Steve finger his hole, the lube cold on his fingers, and he moaned out another wanton breath again as Steve worked him and worked him, slowly, carefully, gently, stretching him with first one finger then two and then three, applying more lube as needed, until he felt the tip of a plug being inserted into him.

"Still OK?" Steve asked before he fully pushed the plug in. " _Ungh_ — Yes, Sir."

Steve pushed the plug in, and Tony groaned and bit his lip to stop the sounds.

"Be right back," Steve said, and Tony was left bent over, belly and breasts hanging, plug in his ass, while Steve apparently went back to the bathroom and washed up again. He came back in a few moments and said, "Have to be more careful about this, as it turns out."

And then Steve gently pulled him upright, and Tony's muscles clenched from the push and tug of the plug, and Steve turned him around then backed him up slowly until he felt his calves hit the bed. He gently lowered Tony to a sitting position, and Tony gasped and tried not to moan as he felt the plug in his ass hit against his walls. He flexed his fingers, his wrists still bound, and squirmed a little, wanting to get the most from that full, tight feeling. But Steve put his hands on his shoulders, chuckling a little as he held him still.

"No," he said. "I know what you're doing, and no. Not allowed."

His hands left Tony's shoulders, and Tony next felt him undoing the bonds around his wrists. He wasn't afraid to admit that he frowned a little at this, as he liked the feeling of being tied and under Steve's control, but then he felt his arms being repositioned behind his back, and Steve told him to hold the position while he went around to the other side of the bed. Tony felt the bed dip with Steve's weight as he came up behind him, and he felt the silk wrap around his wrists again as Steve redid the bindings.

"Still OK?" Steve asked.

"Yes, Sir."

"Good," he said, and Tony felt him get back up off the bed. It was another moment before he sensed that Steve was standing in front of him again, and then Steve's hands were at the back of his head and undoing the tie that held the blindfold on.

Tony blinked as the silk fell away, and Steve put it on the nightstand and said, "For later," then took Tony's chin in his grasp and turned his head up toward him. "Look at me," Steve ordered, and he met Steve's hard, lustful gaze, but not before he let his eyes rake over the sight of Steve's cock, hard and erect, right in front of him, a bead of precome formed at the tip.

Steve let go of his chin then reached back and threaded his fingers through the silken strands of Tony's long, thick waves.

"I'm going to come three times tonight: once in your mouth, once in your pussy, as I think you like to call it, and once in your ass, in that order. You are allowed to come exactly once and only when I tell you that you may. If I feel like you're getting too close before I've decided you're allowed to, I'll back off. Do you understand?"

He swallowed, Steve's eyes boring into his. "Yes, Sir."

"Good. I'll ask you periodically how you feel, but if there comes a point where you feel like we need to stop, use your safe word. What is it?"

"Blueberry."

"Good girl," he said and continued to stroke his hair. "You won't be able to when I'm fucking your mouth, obviously, and I've taken away your ability to use your hands to touch me, so tap your heel against the back of my knee. Do you think you could manage that?"

Tony glanced down and saw where his sheer-stockinged foot rested versus where Steve's leg was, and he figured he could probably swing the angle if he needed to. He wasn't sure how his ass would feel about it, but he could still swing the angle if needed. "Yes," he said as Steve continued to stroke his hair.

"Good. When I come in your mouth, you're going to swallow, do you understand?"

He moistened his lips, tasting the lipstick that was still painted there, and swallowed. "Yes."

"Good."

Steve stopped petting his hair, and he reached down and took a gentle hold of Tony's chin again. He reached up with his thumb and brushed the pad of it against Tony's lower lip, gently, back and forth, almost like he was contemplating something.

"Open your mouth," he murmured and pulled Tony's jaw down and open. Tony aided the measure, attempting to relax his jaw as Steve added, "Eyes on me. I want your eyes on mine at all times."

He shivered involuntarily, and he took a breath before Steve lined himself up and pushed into Tony's mouth, one hand firm at the back of Tony's head to hold him still. Tony moaned and gasped a little as he felt Steve plunder his mouth without mercy, felt the hot weight of Steve's cock on his tongue, and he relaxed his throat and allowed Steve to push in all the way until Tony's nose brushed against the coarse hairs at the base, Steve's scrotum hitting against his chin.

"Suck," Steve ordered him.

Tony didn't have to be told twice.

He did as ordered, sucking, hollowing his cheeks, rubbing his tongue against the underside of Steve's cock, against the thick vein that was there, his eyes never leaving Steve's, not even those moments that Steve got a little ahead of himself and pushed a little too hard and a little too deep, not even as tears sprang to his eyes as he attempted to stifle his gag reflex — not until his body became too lulled by the rhythm, by his own sucking and Steve's gentle thrusts that he let his eyes fall closed and lost himself in the feeling and motion, something so comfortable and familiar and _right_ from having done it countless times before.

"Hey!"

He opened his eyes and looked up at Steve. Steve sucked in a breath but was still able to maintain control of the situation.

"What did I tell you?" he said, low, lustful. "Eyes on me."

He pulled out most of the way, allowing Tony to mouth the tip and swirl his tongue over it, dipping the tip of his tongue into the slit, and Steve stroked his hair some more then tipped his head back slightly and said, "Take a deep breath."

He did so, and Steve pushed back into his mouth, tip of his prick hitting the back of his throat, and Tony grunted and tried to relax his throat to allow Steve to push in further, and Steve said, "This is the first one," only moments before his rhythm became jerky and irregular, and he came in Tony's mouth.

Tony tried to swallow it all, but Steve always seemed to have ridiculous amount of come, and he felt come and saliva leak out of his mouth and dribble down his chin even as he tried to swallow. Steve thrust a few more times then slid his cock out of Tony's mouth, spit and come gathering on his lips and dripping down his chin.

Steve panted a few times and stroked Tony's hair. "Still OK?"

He licked the spit and come from his lips and twisted his hands a little in their bindings. "Yea— _yes_. Yes, Sir," he choked out, his throat slightly raw from abuse.

"Good girl," Steve said and gathered up the spit and come that had dribbled down his chin on his finger and offered it to him. Tony swallowed, his throat a little raw, but still kept his eyes locked with Steve's as he reached out and sucked the fluids off his finger. Steve sucked in a shaky breath, but he exhaled it in a more confident and assured manner, and when Steve had finished cleaning him up, he stroked a finger down his cheek and said, "You were very, very good, Antonia. So good." He ran the pad of his thumb over Tony's lips. "So, very, very good, Antonia. You ready for the second round?"

He swallowed and fought to keep his gaze locked in with Steve's. "Yes."

"Good," Steve said and reached over to the nightstand. Tony saw he was half-hard again already, and he watched as Steve picked up the discarded scarf and, while Tony sat before him, wrapped it around his eyes again and tied it at the back.

Tony felt Steve's hands slide beneath his arms, and he gently tugged him to his feet. Steve pressed his body up against his, and with Steve's hard cock pressing into his belly, he felt Steve reach behind and undo the bindings that held his wrists. He then pulled Tony's arms so they were in front of him again, and he put his wrists together once more and bound them yet again.

"Turn around," Steve said, and Tony followed his instructions, feeling the mattress hit against his knees. Steve touched his right leg and said, "Bend your knee. You need to get up on the bed."

Tony followed his command, bending one knee, then the other, to climb onto the bed, the plug hitting various pleasurable nerve endings with every movement. He bit his lip and inhaled a deep breath through his nose to keep from uttering a sound, and he felt Steve guide him up to the headboard. He rested Tony's hands against the board and ordered him to brace himself, kneeling, straight as a post from the knees up.

"You hold onto the headboard and nothing else, understand me? You are not allowed to touch yourself. You are not allowed to talk. You are not allowed to moan. You do everything I tell you and nothing else. Do you understand? Say 'Yes, Sir,' if you do."

"Yes," he whispered.

"'Yes,' _what?_ "

He swallowed, his breath hitching in his raw and abused throat, the leather of the collar pressing into his neck. "Ye— _yes_ , Sir."

"Good girl," Steve said and pressed a kiss against his shoulder. Steve left him for a moment before he felt the bed dip with his weight, and then Steve was pressed up against his back and nudging his legs apart. "How wet are you?" he murmured into his ear before he stuck a finger inside of Tony. Tony let out a silent gasp at the touch, and Steve hummed in encouragement and said, "Mmm… _much_ better than before. Such a good girl. You're such a good girl, Antonia. God, you're so beautiful."

He then felt Steve's hands on his breasts through the material of the negligée, squeezing and kneading, and he let his head dip a little as he huffed out a silent moan, and Steve pinched his nipples through the gown and said, "You've definitely gotten bigger. They used to fit better in my hands."

He worked his breasts a few more moments, his lips nuzzling at his neck just above where the collar sat, before he slid his hands down and spread them wide over the swell of Tony's belly.

"This is something we have to work on. You know why?" he asked and traced his fingers over the cloth-covered flesh. Tony shivered at the touch. "That's why," he said like it explained everything. "You are incredibly sensitive on your belly."

Then, to show Tony precisely what he meant, he traced his fingertips lightly up and down the swell. Tony let out a high-pitched keen and tipped his head back.

"So sensitive. You love it. Don't tell me you don't. I can tell you do. You love when I touch it. I've never seen you more sensitive to any touch I've ever given you."

He slid his hands beneath the negligée and began to caress him outright, large hands splayed over the bump as he rubbed it, equal parts erotic and possessive.

" _Steve_ ," he murmured desperately, unable to help himself.

"Ah! What did I say? No words. Now—"

He adjusted Tony's position a little, spreading his legs just a little bit wider, pulling him back to better position him to be able to take him. He pushed the hem of the negligée up over the curve of his ass, and Tony felt Steve push into him. Tony moaned and grunted with it, grasping hard to the headboard, and Steve worked his rhythm a few times before his hands moved back to the swell of Tony's abdomen.

"Remember what I said?" he asked as he stroked Tony's belly. "You are not allowed to come until I tell you."

Tony mewled out a desperate and wanton cry because if Steve kept going the way he was, he wasn't sure he _wouldn't_ be able to come. The way his hands were on Tony's body, the way he touched his abdomen — his ridiculously sensitive abdomen — the way his muscles clenched and yearned for even more of that touch, the way his clit swelled and throbbed with need, the way his vaginal muscles twitched and clenched around Steve's cock, desperate to have it, desperate to feel him thrust into him and force him to take his seed. He needed it. He needed Steve so bad.

"Antonia, do you remember what I said about you coming?" Steve asked, cheek pressed to his and hands still stroking over his belly.

"Ye— _yes_ ," he stuttered out, the word barely able to be formed in his mouth.

"What was that?"

He keened a little bit again and tipped his head back so it was resting against Steve's shoulder, and he took a breath and was finally able to whisper out, " _Yes, Sir_."

"Good," Steve said and then began to work at a slow, gentle thrust, the plug in his ass hitting his walls with each and every hit, doubling the desperate, yearning need thrumming through him. "Oh, don't be like that," he said at Tony's despairing whine, his fingers trailing over Tony's abdomen, sending quivers of want down his spine and straight to his clit that was desperate for attention. "You want to know why? Because you like this. Because you like the control I have over you. Because you like that only I can do this to you. And you know what? I like that, too. Only I get to do this. Only I get to see this. This is for me and only for me. Because you're mine. You're my Antonia Natasha. No one else gets you like this, not now or ever. This is mine. This is only for me. You're like this only for me. You give yourself this way only to me. I've already marked you. This, right here?"

He rubbed his hands over Tony's belly, and Tony fought desperately to keep from crying out.

"This is my mark. This says you belong to me, that you're mine, that no one else can have you, can touch you this way. Everyone knows it. Everyone sees it. Everyone knows that you're mine and this is mine and you belong to me. That you've been spoken for. That I've done this to you."

" _Steve_ ," he whispered. " _Steve, I_ —"

"Oh," Steve said and pulled out quickly, and Tony let out a high-pitched cry of desperation. "What did I tell you? You come when I say you come. And you're not allowed to come yet."

He dropped his hands from Tony's belly, and Tony tipped his head forward and rested it against the hands that braced the headboard. God, that was no fair. That was no fucking fair. He was so _clo_ —

He gasped but didn't lift his head as he felt Steve push into him again, and he felt the warm release of Steve's seed as it spilled into him, his fingers digging into the headboard for purchase and to work through his own desperate need to just fucking _come_ already.

Steve shot through a few more quick thrusts, and Tony could only think, _Fuck, Steve, I'm already pregnant,_ at the amount of spend Steve emptied into him. He'd _just_ flooded his mouth with the stuff.

Steve pulled out with a thoroughly debauched squelch, and as Tony gasped and pressed his forehead into his bound hands, he felt Steve kiss his shoulder again and say, "This was the second time. One more, and then it's your turn. Then you can come. Still OK, Antonia?"

God, were they still doing that? Just fucking fuck him already and let him come, for god's sake!

" _Yes, Sir_ ," he all but whispered, and Steve kissed his shoulder again.

"Good. God, you're so good, Antonia. So good. You're so beautiful. I wish you could see yourself here. You look so fucking beautiful. The glow. The sheen of sweat. That look of desperation on your face."

He traced light fingertips over Tony's back.

"My Antonia," he murmured and pressed kisses from one shoulder to the other, hands splaying over his back and around to cup his breasts. "My Antonia Natasha. You're just— You know, I really feel like you were made just for me. Honestly, I do. I feel like you were created just for me, just this perfect, perfect partner for me. So perfect. So gorgeous. So, I don't know, _right_."

He dropped his hands from Tony's breasts and moved down to cup his ass, and he traced his fingers lightly over the sensitive flesh and said, "Are you ready for the final round?"

He hadn't picked his head up, resting his forehead against his hands still, and he nodded his head. "I need words, Antonia."

" _Yes_."

"Good girl," he said, and Tony felt him reach down and slowly and carefully twist the plug out of his ass. He gasped and arched his back just a little, and Steve shushed him and rubbed the hand that rested at the small of his back.

"It's OK. It's OK. You've done this before," he said, evidently using the tip of his dick to determine whether or not his hole was loose and pliable enough, and before Tony could say or do anything more, he pushed himself in. Tony groaned out but pushed himself further down onto Steve's cock until he was fully seated on it. It was a familiar feeling, a welcome one, and he didn't even falter as Steve put gentle hands at his sides and pulled him away from the headboard some so he was resting against Steve, kneeling, legs spread, impaled on his cock, and blind to the world.

He still hadn't really moved, and Tony wondered what he was doing until he felt the index and pointer fingers of Steve's left hand pushing at his mouth.

"Suck," he ordered, and Tony took the digits in Steve's mouth and began to suck, his jaw still a little sore from earlier but nothing he couldn't work around.

"You suck so beautifully," Steve whispered in his ear. "You're so good at it. I love to watch your lips stretch over my cock and over my fingers. I wish you could see yourself. I wish you could see how beautiful you look doing this."

He pressed a kiss to Tony's jaw, and that's when Tony felt Steve's other hand down at his clit, and he moaned a moment as he felt Steve's fingers work the hardened, engorged nub that had been so unfairly ignored for so long. And then Steve was thrusting into him, and he couldn't help the desperate, wanton, needy sounds that keened high in his throat even as he sucked at Steve's fingers.

"That's it. Atta girl. Now you've got it," he said as they found a rhythm, Steve thrusting and stroking and Tony sucking. "You can come now, Antonia. You can come whenever you want. I want you to come. I want to watch your face as you come."

Tony flexed his fingers around the headboard, digging in desperately as he tried to control himself. But he was panting, and Steve was thrusting and stroking, and he couldn't even think straight from the nerve endings that were electrified by his touch. He sucked Steve's fingers, the digits gone ridiculously slick, and he half-expected Steve to pull his fingers away and shove them into his only unfilled opening, but he just kept them there, forcing Tony to suck at them, forcing him to keen and shiver and lurch and twitch and clench with all the feelings of wanton desire that were thrumming through him.

He felt that now-familiar telltale warmth pooling in his belly, throbbing and growing and threatening to overtake him, and Steve was murmuring something in his ear about wanting him to come, but it wasn't until Tony felt the familiar spend emptying into him, marking him, that he felt his own desire finally overcome him, and he came with the most obscene moan he was sure anyone had ever uttered, arching in on himself and gasping out for breath, Steve's spit-slickened fingers sliding out of his mouth and away as he worked Tony through the final aftershocks of his orgasm, murmuring how good he was and how beautiful he was and how perfect he was.

Steve slid out of him after a few moments and ran light hands up and down Tony's sides, and then Tony saw daylight — or nighttime light, anyway — as the blindfold was taken off him. He squinted and blinked at the lights, just barely noticing that Steve had already taken the collar off and was now untying the bond that held his wrists together. Steve fell back onto the bed and pulled Tony with him, and Tony watched in a slight daze as Steve took his wrists and inspected them before he pulled them up to his mouth and kissed them, and he kissed Tony's cheek and cuddled him and said, "You were so good. You were so amazingly good."

Tony nodded and went to say 'thanks' but instead what came out— Was a sob.

An honest-to-god sob that began deep in his chest and came sputtering out in a pathetic blubber, and even through his tears, he could see Steve's absolutely wrecked and horrified expression, and he watched as Steve panicked and fought to get away from him, muttering, "I'm sorry," over and over again.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry, honey. I didn't mean— I thought you— Oh, god, I didn't force you, did I? Please tell me I didn't just— Oh, god, please tell me I didn't. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—"

But Tony just shook his head, and he grabbed hold of Steve's hand before he could tumble off the bed in horror and pulled him back, and as Steve blathered on about how sorry he was and how he should have asked and he should have made sure, Tony reached up and met his lips, kissing him, putting his arms around his neck to hold him close. God, he loved him. He loved this man so much. He didn't know what he'd done in a past life to deserve such a man, but he'd do it all over again just so that he could have him, so that he could have _this_.

He felt Steve fumble with his hands like he wasn't sure what to do with them before he finally settled on putting them on his sides just above where his waist would have been if he hadn't had a parasite growing inside of him. He kissed Steve, wet and wanton, for a moment before Steve pulled back, lips glistening with saliva and brow furrowed in confusion.

"All right," he said, "you have to explain that."

Tony sniffled and shrugged. "I'm hormonal, I guess. I don't know."

Steve wasn't convinced, jaw set and a hardness in his eyes like he was angry at himself for something. "But you shouldn't — you shouldn't break down into _sobs_ after we make love," he said and stroked Tony's hair back away from his face, and Tony tried not to think about where those fingers had just been. "That's not— God, Tony, that's not something I ever want to—"

"Steve, it's fine. Believe me. It's fine, it's more than—"

He couldn't ignore it any longer. He looked down at his abdomen and marveled at the crazy thumping going on down there.

"And I'm not the only one that thinks so," he said, and Steve frowned at him in confusion before Tony took his hand and put it against his belly. "Feel?"

He waited a moment for Steve to feel what he felt, and his eyebrows shot up in surprise and said, "Is that supposed to happen?"

"You tell me. You're the one reading all that pregnancy shit. My _god_ , someone's excited."

Steve choked out a slight laugh, and he grinned at Tony and said, "I guess that's a good thing, right?"

"I think we can take it as a good thing, yeah."

"It's not painful, is it? It doesn't feel like it's in distress or anything?" He shook his head.

"No, it's a good feeling. Trust me."

Steve nodded, his eyes on Tony's abdomen, but Tony saw his shoulders had yet to relax.

"Babe," he said, and Steve looked up and met his eyes, "you didn't do anything wrong. _Trust me_. That was… That was fucking _amazing_. I don't know how much longer we can keep doing that, but trust me. Eleven-out-of-ten, would totally do again. But if you promise not to tell anyone, I'll tell you why I started crying."

Steve frowned, that deep furrow forming between his brows. "Tony, you shouldn't cry—"

"I love you, Steve. I fucking love you to pieces. That's… That's what popped into my head. Just the fact that I'm so lucky and so fortunate to have you, and all I could think of was how much I loved you and how lucky I was to have you here with me and I…"

He sniffled and blinked away the newest batch of tears that had formed.

"Fucking hell, Steve! Look at me! God, I can't even tell my husband I love him without sobbing like an idiot over it!"

He reached up and wiped the tears away from his eyes, and he scowled and added. "Well, fuck, there goes my makeup."

But Steve reached out and brushed a few tendrils of dark hair away from his face. "You still look beautiful to me," he murmured. "My Antonia."

He choked out a watery laugh. "Thought I was back to being 'Tony'?"

Steve shrugged a little and ran his fingers through Tony's hair. "I think in some way you'll always be my Antonia after this. Kind of like how you're still my Tony now."

Before Tony could say anything, Steve got up from the bed, and he went around to the other side to get better leverage, and he reached down and scooped him up into his arms.

"Come on," he said quietly. "Let's get cleaned up and go to bed."

~*~

They showered, and Steve was very good about washing all the muck off of Tony, running the cloth over his body and murmuring about how well he'd done and how good he was, and Tony just leaned into his touch and let him, loving the feel of his fingers as he massaged the shampoo into his scalp.

After they'd finished showering, Steve asked if he was hungry, and when Tony said he could go for something to eat, Steve just smiled and nodded and said he'd be back.

Tony took that time to get dressed, selecting not a comfortable pair of pajamas but an arc reactor blue teddy with cream-colored trim and tiny bows that he'd got when Natasha and Hill had taken him shopping for his wedding (they'd insisted on lingerie as well). He wasn't sure why. He didn't have to entice Steve any longer; no, he realized as he moved a little and felt the ache of well-used and abused muscles in his ass and snatch — ugh, maybe it was best to stick with 'pussy' — that were going to be feeling what Steve did to him for _days_ , and honestly, that was OK. He felt used by Steve but in the best kind of way, the kind that was empowering, the kind that said, yes, _he_ was the one Steve had chosen to do this to, to do this with. _He_ was the one Steve wanted and Steve desired, and here was the proof. Because _he_ was desirable. _He_ was gorgeous and sexy and wanted. _He_ was the one Steve loved and wanted to mark.

Wanted to mark. Had marked.

He looked down at his belly, covered by the thin, colorful material of the teddy, and he put his hands there and rubbed it.

Steve's mark.

God, that should not have thrilled him as much as it did, that should not have delighted him in any way, that should not have made his walls ache with the want to be abused just one more time that night. It was possessive and domineering, and he'd bet that Steve probably didn't even remember saying it, but Tony did, and Tony…

Tony liked the idea of it.

That _Steve_ had done this to him — not that nutcase from the stars but _Steve_. _His_ Steve. The one he loved. The one that supported him and stood by him and loved him and took care of him and yelled at him and nagged at him and annoyed the shit out of him sometimes. Esmeralda might have given him the body, but everything else had been Steve. This was Steve's mark on him. This was Steve's child. This was Steve's claim on him because he wanted Tony, desired Tony, and wanted to show the world that Tony belonged to him and to no one else.

He swallowed and took a breath to calm the thrum of desire that was shivering through his veins. No, they'd done quite enough for tonight. He was tired — sort of; that shower had really woken him up — and it was late, and he wasn't sure he could handle one more round of Steve controlling when he could come, as much as he loved it. He just needed to relax, get something light to eat, and go to sleep. His body would thank him for it.

The one bad thing about having long hair was that it took quite a long time to air dry, and so he ran some styling balm through it and pulled out the hair dryer and set to work blowing it out. The other thing was that his hair was such that if he didn't use any sort of product in it, then it looked like shit, and it added a little more weight to his hair (which was thick and heavy enough the way it was), but he had to admit it looked damned good when he did it.

And he liked looking this way.

 _Not_ that he wasn't practically counting down the days until he could go back to his old self. God, he couldn't wait for that. But right now, he was actually enjoying this whole endeavor, to some degree, and he _knew_ he looked good, and he _knew_ he looked attractive, belly and all. Because he knew he looked like a goddamned goddess. And he kind of liked that. Because it was empowering. Because it was invigorating. Because he'd had sex and enjoyed sex many, many, _many_ times in the past, but he'd never felt like such a being of pure sexuality as he did at that moment.

He honestly felt like he himself was some goddess of fertility, like he was Venus or Aphrodite riding on the clamshell (which…was not some sort of god-awful euphemism). There was a horrified little part of him that pleaded with him to stop his musings and not take this any further because taking it in these terms meant accepting it, and he wasn't sure that he could ever accept what that nutcase had done to him, but there was such a thing as making the best of a horrible situation, and—

Look, he had lucked out. Even he could admit he had fucking lucked out. This could have happened to anyone in the world, anyone that didn't have the barest of means to deal with it, but it had happened to him, and that was maybe one of the luckiest things ever to happen to anyone.

Because he had the support network for it: he had a husband that would stand by his side no matter what, friends that would do anything for him, and he had the money and the connections to keep this as far on the down-low as possible. Yes, it was a horrifying sort of body horror that should never have existed in the real world, but this was the kind of world they lived in now, and Tony could make the sacrifice so that this wouldn't have to happen to anyone else.

And besides, maybe Steve was right. Maybe, of all the Avengers, it _did_ make the most sense for Tony to endure this. Because he did create, and he did bring things to life, and he'd already done so in the past. His 'bots, his suits, his AI were all kind of like metal and computerized children he'd given birth to…in a weird way.

And now he could do that with a flesh and blood child. Hopefully, DUM-E wouldn't get too jealous.

He finished up in the bathroom, and he switched the light off and made his way back into the bedroom where Steve sat up on the bed, back against the headboard, tablet in hand, fresh sheets that didn't bear the hallmarks of the thoroughly licentious things they'd done to each other an hour before. There was a tray of food sitting on Tony's side of the bed, and he went over and sat down, tucking one leg underneath him as he picked at the grapes and the cheese and the pretzels.

"Are you reading another pregnancy article?" he muttered as he crunched on a pretzel and tried to look over Steve's shoulder.

"No," he said with a slightly amused laugh. " _The New York Times_. I really wish you'd start reading some articles, though."

"Eh," he said with a shrug and popped a grape in his mouth. "Did you eat?"

"Yeah, I picked," Steve said as he swiped to another page, but he side-eyed Tony and said, "That's a little fancy for sleeping, don't you think?"

He leaned up against him to read over his shoulder. "I like the way it looks on me. Makes me feel kind of, I don't know, _pretty_ or something."

Steve glanced to him more fully. "You didn't before?"

"No, I just… It's hard to explain."

"Try me."

He sat back some, and he considered Steve a moment before he took the tablet out of his hands and reached out to set it on the nightstand. He then threw a leg over Steve's lap to straddle him, and Steve bent his knees and pulled his legs up to provide more of a balance for Tony as he straddled his waist, his arms draped over Steve's shoulders, and his belly brushing against Steve's rock-hard abdomen.

"You can't tell me you want to go again," Steve said, amused smile on his face as he reached up and began to rub his hands up and down Tony's arms.

"Honestly? I probably could. But we just showered, and you very nicely cleaned up the bed, which is weird — are you feeling OK? — and I don't feel like getting messy again, so no, we're not going again."

"All right, but if you do, just tell me. Anyway, so what do you mean?"

"About what?"

Steve motioned over his delicate ensemble. "This."

"Oh, right. OK, look, I know I probably shouldn't say this given the weirdness of the situation, but, honest to god, Steve. I can't help it. I feel like a goddess. I feel like a goddamned goddess of fertility like this."

Steve made a squeamish face as he rubbed his hands up and down Tony's arms. "You know, given how this whole thing started, I really wish you wouldn't say that."

"Yeah, I know, but I can't help it. It's how I feel. It's _weird_ , but it's how I feel. I feel like…like I'm some goddamned fertility goddess like this. I mean, I have created a brand-new human life that's growing inside of me."

"I helped," Steve muttered with a pout, and Tony hummed a little in thought.

"Yeah, but I don't see _you_ growing it inside you, now do I?"

Tony would swear some element of relief crossed his face for a fraction of a second, but he still continued to rub his hands up and down Tony's arms as he said, "So, does this mean you've come to accept it?"

He sighed out a breath. "Honestly? I'm not sure yet. Maybe, in a way, I have only because what other choice do I have? I don't."

"You're handling it a lot better than I ever would."

"Really?"

Steve just shrugged a little but wouldn't meet his gaze.

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. I… I don't know how you're doing it. I don't think I could."

Tony breathed out a laugh. "Jesus, if you think this is me 'handling it,' I'd hate to see how you'd actually deal with it."

"That's the thing," Steve said and moved his hands to Tony's abdomen, tracing his fingers lightly over the flesh and making Tony shiver in delight from the touch. "I don't think I could deal with it. I honestly don't know how I would act, but I know I'd be taking it a lot worse than you."

"Wait, hold on. The man that let a German scientist and my asshole father shoot him up with steroids and then throw him in a radiation chamber has a problem with _this?_ "

"Well, there is a difference," Steve said.

"What?"

"I still had a dick when it was all over."

"Touché," Tony murmured in reply, then shook his head and stared at Steve, resolute, "Look, I could sit here all day and cry my eyes out about it, but what good is that going to do me? And trust me. I could _easily_ sit here and cry my eyes out about it. I cried at a goddamned Kay Jewelers commercial the other day, for god's sake!"

"Every kiss begins with Kay," Steve intoned, and Tony glared at him.

"I'm so glad you've caught up to commercial tag lines in your education of modern popular culture."

"Lucky Strike means fine tobacco," Steve replied. "Call for Phillip Morris. No, they didn't have that stuff back in my day."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "I notice both of those you mentioned were for cigarettes." Steve shrugged.

"Don't tell me you smoked."

Steve shrugged again but said, "A couple of times. Wrecked hell with my asthma. I used to have to smoke those asthma cigarettes from time to time—"

"And you thought a Lucky Strike would work just as well?"

"Easier to get my hands on. Not as much fun as a marijuana cigarette, maybe—"

Tony choked out a cough, and Steve frowned and tilted his head.

"Are you OK?" he asked and went back to rubbing his hands up and down Tony's arms.

Tony coughed a few more times before he was able to collect himself, and he looked Steve dead in his crystalline blue eyes and said, "I'm sorry, did Captain America just admit to smoking marijuana? No, don't tell me. You didn't inhale."

Steve didn't seem to get the joke, and he frowned a little but said, "No, _Captain America_ didn't. But Steve Rogers?" He seemed a little abashed but a little amused as well as he added, "Once or twice."

Tony just gawked, and Steve shrugged, sheepish but still amused.

"It wasn't always illegal. Buck and I would go listen to the bands play. Sometimes we hung out with them afterwards. They always had some on them."

"So, musicians getting toked out of their minds didn't start in the '60s?"

"Sorry," Steve said but looked anything but. "Didn't mean to disillusion you."

"No, it's fine. It's fine. Next, you'll tell me sex wasn't invented in the '60s, either."

Steve pretended to think about this before he said, "No, I'm pretty sure they had that one back in my day, too."

He met Tony's eyes and grinned at him, and Tony grinned in return before he said, "Say, babe?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I ask you something? And you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but I'm just curious. 'cause you know the extent of _my_ history — hell, the whole world knows, or thinks they know, at least — but…you ever make it with any of those chorus girls?" He put a hand up in defense before Steve could even open his mouth. "And if you don't feel like saying anything, that's fine. That's your history, and I know you're not exact a kiss-and-tell type, but I'm just curious because I know when we started this whole thing up you were pretty damned inexperienced, and I'm just wondering what the extent of that inexperience was."

Steve broke their gaze, but not out of embarrassment, more like he was thinking back to an earlier time, and a little smile came over his face as he got lost in a memory.

"Well," he said, but he wouldn't meet Tony's eyes, "I'm not going to name names—"

"Babe, she's probably been dead a good twenty years by this point."

"I know, but still." He cleared his throat and met Tony's eyes again. "There was one girl. Gorgeous. Had a beautiful face and just…an amazing figure. Perfectly proportioned and symmetrical. I ended up sketching her a couple times because she was just so—"

" _Ahem_."

Steve grinned at him and rubbed his hands up and down Tony's arms once more. "Well, _clearly_ she wasn't as beautiful or symmetrical as you."

"Thank you."

Steve chuckled a little and went back to his story.

"Anyway, I, um, _tried it_ with her. And I say 'tried it' because it wasn't long after I'd joined the circuit, and I had a lot of things on my mind. Mostly that I shouldn't have been there. That I should have been fighting on the front lines. She was, ah—" He coughed and cleared his throat. "We were sitting — kinda like how we are right now — one night, and, um, she was trying. She was really trying. But I…"

"Couldn't get it up?" Tony supplied.

"Yeah," he said like he was slightly ashamed. "I know I wanted to, but I just _couldn't_. She thought it was because—"

"She thought you were gay?"

He shrugged, sheepish and abashed, and Tony saw slight embarrassment lining his blue irises. "Well, I was in showbiz. And I _looked_ like I should have been out at the front instead of—"

"Prancing around onstage in a spangly costume?"

Steve just dropped his head at Tony's rather blunt explanation, but he picked himself back up and met Tony's gaze again.

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Anyway, it…didn't take long for it to get around to the other girls in the chorus line, and—"

"You never had a chance after that."

"No."

"And you didn't even attempt to correct the record?"

"Figured it wasn't worth it. I had already waited twenty-five years to find the right partner. What was another twenty-five?" he reasoned then smiled at Tony, soft and intimate. "Or seventy?"

Warmth and happiness flooded Tony's body at that, and against his will, he found his eyes welling up with tears as Steve continued to caress his arms.

"You son-of-a-bitch," he muttered and tried to blink the tears away, but a couple spilled down his cheeks. "See? What'd I tell you about the crying?"

But Steve just pulled him closer, and Tony put his arms around Steve's shoulders as Steve brought their mouths together, and Steve's hands went to his sides and his back, caressing him, holding him, tongue and teeth and saliva as they kissed slow and intimate, and when Steve finally pulled back a few minutes later, he murmured, "I mean it," his breath ghosting over Tony's mouth as he spoke. "I'd wait another seventy if I had to if it meant I got this at the end of it."

"Even with me being like this?" Tony said and motioned down at himself.

Steve nodded, hands splayed out over Tony's back, fingers toying with the satin straps of the negligée. "Yeah. Even like this. Hell, I kinda consider myself the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in the world."

"How?"

Steve reached up a little and pecked a few more kisses against Tony's lips, and Tony responded in kind before Steve said, "I don't know how to explain it, really. It's just…I got to make love to you as a man, and now I get to make love to you as a woman, and I… It's like I get to have you in every which way imaginable — physically, anyway — but it's still _you_. You're still _you_ , and it's just…amazing that I get to have this, and I get to have some part of you that no one else can ever have, and I get to see you in a way that no one else ever will."

He stopped talking and shrugged a little, slightly abashed and maybe even a little insecure, and he wouldn't meet Tony's eyes after that, preferring instead to stare at the arm that rested on his shoulder.

Tony reached up and began to play with the soft hair at nape of Steve's neck. "You want to know a secret?" he asked, but Steve still wouldn't look up from his arm. "You know a huge reason I haven't gone off the deep end over this? You." He leaned down and brushed his lips against the side of Steve's forehead and down to his temple. "I mean it," he said and pulled back, still stroking his fingers against Steve's neck. "My mind is constantly waffling over this whole thing. Sometimes I'm freaked out about it because, you know, this doesn't _happen_ in real life. Other times, I feel like a fucking sex goddess of fertility, like I do now. I never really know how I'm going to feel one moment to the next, but the one thing I can totally count on through all of this is _you_. I can do this because I know I've got you at my back one hundred percent. And, if I'm being completely honest with myself, I'm…kind of _enjoying_ it. I don't know what that says about me. Maybe I don't want to know. But I'm enjoying the hell out of this. I know men joke about getting in touch with their feminine side, but I have to say, it's fantastic. Seriously. I know there's a lot of shitty things women go through that I don't really have to worry about — sexism, glass ceiling, that sort of stuff — but the other stuff? Makeup is _fun_. Getting my hair done is _fun_. Getting my nails done and getting dressed up is _fun_. Putting on something like this and getting you to get that look on your face like you've blown a fuse is _fun_. I know it sounds like stupid and shallow crap, but goddamn it, Steve, I like being _pretty_. I like walking around here feeling like I'm fucking Aphrodite herself."

Steve could only laugh.

"I guess that makes you the Adonis to my Aphrodite."

Steve sighed out a breath, but there was no anger or annoyance behind it, only amusement. "Somehow, I don't think that's a comparison we want to draw, but if it makes you happy, OK. You can be Aphrodite, and I'll be Adonis."

"You _are_ an Adonis. Have you looked at yourself since 1942? I mean, even before then, the pictures I've seen, you had this cute little stubbornness about you. But since then? _Now?_ Look, I know it probably comes off a little biased, but seriously, Steve, we are probably the most attractive couple in existence."

Steve full-throated laughed at that.

"Don't laugh! I'm serious. You are too gorgeous for words. Yeah, Thor's a hunk, sure, but you are just too beautiful for words. And I don't think it's vain to accept that I myself make for a very attractive woman. And even now, looking like this? I'm glowing. I can tell I'm glowing. Stop laughing and listen to me!"

"I _am_ listening," Steve said through his laughs, caressing his hands all over Tony's torso. "We're the most attractive couple in the history of existence."

"Well, I don't know about the _history_ of existence. Mmm…keep doing that."

"What? This?" Steve asked and rubbed his hand over Tony's small belly. "You're really sensitive there, you know that?"

"I know," he murmured and closed his eyes, bracing his hands on Steve's shoulders for balance. "Fuck, that feels good."

"Yeah?" Steve murmured and continued to caress.

"Like you wouldn't believe. God, I hope that doesn't make me a pervert."

"How would it? It's your body, isn't it?"

Tony opened his eyes at that, and Steve paused his caresses, his hand hovering over Tony's abdomen. Tony met his gaze, and it was like a light had gone off over his head and realization had dawned on him.

This _was_ his body.

He'd fought against it for so long, denied it for so long, and wished it away for so long, but it couldn't be ignored any longer. This _was_ his body. This was his body just as much as his other body was. Maybe he hadn't wanted to admit it. Maybe he'd thought admitting it was accepting defeat because he'd been forced into this body through no choice of his own, and so long as he fought it, so long as he denied it, it still gave him an illusion of choice in the matter. Because accepting this, accepting this body was accepting what had been done to him. It was saying whatever had been done to him was OK, and it was far, far from being OK.

But maybe this being his body _was_ OK. Not how it had happened, of course, which was so heavily outside the scope of consent it was laughable, but the fact that it was now his and all the denials in the world weren't going to turn him back. Not until he'd completed this…mission…for lack of a better word. This _was_ his body. This was him. Not the body he'd had for forty-three years, but still his body, however foreign some of it was, and he was still him. His husband still found him attractive. He was fertile, and he was desirable. He was right before when he'd said that sitting at home and crying about it wasn't going to do anything for him. It wasn't going to make this end any quicker, it wasn't going to make it better, and it wasn't going to make it so that it had never happened. But similar to accepting that Iron Man wasn't just the suit he wore to protect himself from the world but that Tony Stark himself was and would always be Iron Man, so, too, was this not just something to suffer through until he could get back to normal. He may have had the body of a woman, he may have been pregnant, but he was still Tony Stark, and nothing was ever going to change that.

So, this _was_ his body as much as the other one was, and everything that went along with it was part and parcel of who he was. He had created life out of machines before; now he was creating life out of flesh and blood…with a little help from a certain super soldier, at least.

"Yeah," he finally said, smiling at Steve like he'd just come to realize something he'd always known deep down. "It is."

He leaned down and pressed his lips against Steve's again, wrapping his arms around Steve's shoulders as he and Steve traded soft, lazy kisses. Steve's hands caressed his back a moment before he broke the kiss, and he pulled away and said, "If you don't want another mess tonight, we should probably stop what we're doing right now."

Tony grinned and kissed the tip of his nose. "Sure thing, babe," he said then slid back off of Steve and onto his side of the bed, and he picked at the platter a little more before he yawned and said, "Ugh, OK, now I'm tired again."

Steve laughed. "It's about time it hit you," he said and got up, taking the tray of food with him. "Climb under the covers and close your eyes. I'm gonna take this back to the kitchen so it doesn't end up all over the place in the night."

Tony just snuggled into the sheets and waved him off. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "I'll be here when you get back."

He was out like a light by the time Steve returned a couple minutes later.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, things go a _little bit_ pear-shaped in this chapter.

* * *

Tony didn't wake up until sometime after ten the next morning, the sun already up and burning brightly in the sky and Steve's side of the bed rumpled but cold, indicating he'd long since gone for his run and hadn't returned.

He did what he needed to in the bathroom then went downstairs to the kitchen and saw a yellow sticky posted to the front of the cold and unused coffeemaker.

 _No_ , it read with two bold lines drawn underneath it and a disapproving-looking little frowny-face next to it. He scowled and read what else Steve had scrawled on it.

_Breakfast in the oven. Sam made. Use the hot pads._

Thank god Wilson had made it. At least it would be edible.

He crumpled up the note, scowled angrily at the coffeemaker, then opened up the warm oven and saw a plate of scrambled eggs with bacon and toast. He grabbed a dishtowel from off the kitchen island and pulled the plate out, and he set it down and hit the door with his hip to close it. There was another yellow sticky attached to the fridge, and we went over and read it.

_Fresh bottle of orange juice. Haven't had a chance to backwash into it yet._

And then a smiley-face. An honest-to-god smiley. This man was sick.

He reached in and grabbed the bottle of orange juice, and he grabbed a glass from the cabinet and settled down to his plate. He propped up the tablet Steve had left lying there and pulled up a current news station feed and only half-paid attention to it as the host droned on about some sort of turmoil on Capitol Hill before he saw his own image reflected back at him — or what had been his image up until a few months ago.

" _Tony Stark: Dead or Alive? That's what many people are asking themselves in the wake of some the more recent strange happenings of the Avengers._ "

He sat up a little, halfway through building a sandwich with the eggs, toast, and bacon, and he watched some images flash on the screen from previous gala events that he'd attended with the other Avengers.

" _While Tony Stark himself has not been seen in several months, Iron Man has made several appearances with the Avengers, and with reports that Captain America himself, Steve Rogers, has been seen around New York with a mysterious brunette, many are speculating that the superheroes are hiding something about their teammate and tech guru. Joining me now to discuss this is Senior Political Analyst Germaine Larson, and Christine Everhart—"_

Tony groaned as the face of his former…one night stand, let's be honest…popped up on the screen along with whoever this other chick was. He watched the host bandy back and forth with the guests as they speculated about the whereabouts of Tony Stark and what was really going on inside Avengers Tower, slapping one slice of toast atop his completed sandwich, and he took a bite of it as the host asked the guests, " _But, is it possible that Tony Stark has been dead for several months and the Avengers have been covering it up, and, if so, what would be the benefit to that?_ "

"I'm not dead!" he shouted at the screen, the mouthful of food muffling his words. "I'm just fucking pregnant!"

His stomach chose that exact moment to make with the light thumping, and Tony glanced down and said, "That's right! You tell 'em!"

Wait, was he actually talking to this…whatever-it-was now?

He missed some of what was said after that, but he didn't miss the next line from Carrie or…what was her name again?

_"I think anyone that thought Tony Stark would be able to settle into a relationship with anyone — even Captain America — was just kidding themselves. This is a man that has made it his life's goal not to get too involved with anyone, is actually proud of his 'playboy' reputation, and— Look, he bounced from one 'serious,' long-term relationship right into another one almost immediately. I don't think it's unfair to say that being with Captain America was the culmination of a lifelong fantasy for him and maybe even some way of kind of one-upping his father more than an actual desire to settle down."_

"Yeah, sure, totally right there," he said and rolled his eyes, the diamond-and-sapphire band catching in the light as he raised the sandwich to his mouth to take another bite.

" _But what do you make of the fact that this mystery woman bears a striking resemblance to Tony Stark, even if just as a woman?"_

The other guest jumped in on that one.

_"Well, clearly, Captain America has a type, for one thing, but for another thing, I think what this says is that Captain America, no matter how much he was championing the whole gay rights agenda before, is clearly more comfortable being with a woman, and I think we can probably chalk up his flirtation with the gay side of the aisle to his involvement with Tony Stark."_

"Well, that may be the stupidest and most misinformed thing I've ever heard," he muttered around a mouthful of food. "You cannot begin to imagine how much that man enjoys sucking brain. Or how good he is at it. Seriously, he's fucking awesome."

" _So, final verdict,_ " the host asked finally, " _Tony Stark: Dead or Alive?"_

" _Oh, I think he's alive_ ," the one he hadn't slept with in the past said. " _I do think there's something that they're not telling us. I don't know if it's that he's been incapacitated, if he's on life support, if he's just had a nervous breakdown, or if— You never know. That mystery woman could even be Tony Stark! Maybe he had a sex change operation."_

"You are more right than you could possibly know," he muttered and took another bite of his sandwich. His abdomen thumped a bit in a weird show of something like solidarity.

The host smiled a little and said, " _You never know. Christine?"_

" _Oh, I agree with Germaine. I think he's still alive, but I think they're hiding something from us about the condition he's in. I think there'll be enough questions asked about this in the coming weeks that they'll have to make an announcement of some kind. And clearly, I think, this brings up the issue of if they can't even tell us what's going on with their teammate, what aren't they telling the public about what they really do?"_

Tony rolled his eyes and groaned a little as the host conceded that was a good question that deserved an answer, and he shook his head and went back to eating his sandwich as the host moved onto some fluff piece about a wildlife reserve, and he swiped off the feed and scanned over some stock prices and read over a reminder that he had promised Pepper some new specs for energy projects, and he sighed and finished off his sandwich and his juice — Jesus, Steve really had domesticated him, hadn't he? — and headed in the direction of his lab to lose himself in some of his projects.

He was just crossing through the living room when Pepper stepped off the elevator, dressed and looking a little anxious, and Tony frowned and said, "J, how come you didn't warn me Pep was coming up?"

" _You were so thoroughly engrossed in your tablet viewing, I thought it prudent not to interrupt,_ " JARVIS replied, and Tony rolled his eyes as Pepper stepped in front of him and said, "Tony, we need to talk."

But Tony just looked up at her and said, "The shoes, again? Really?"

" _Tony_ —"

"Look, I know I promised you the specs for the projects, but I kind of fell a little behind with them," he said as he went over to the elevator and hit the button. The doors opened immediately, and Tony stepped on, barefoot, and Pepper followed. As the doors closed, he glanced down at himself, and he burst out laughing, much to Pepper's confusion.

"What?" she asked, not seeming to understand — or care — about the joke.

He held up a red-toenailed food. "Look at me. Barefoot and pregnant," he said through his laughs. Pepper groaned and rolled her eyes, and he nudged her and said, "Oh, come on! You've got to find that a little funny!"

"No, I really don't," she said, sounding like she wasn't in the mood for any of his jokes.

"What are you doing on this side of the country, anyway?" he asked as the elevator let them off at the lab, and he walked in, the lights coming up around him as they stepped into the enclave.

"Tony, we have a problem," she said while he went over to his workstation and brought up his computer.

"Yeah? What kind of problem?" he asked, not really paying attention because he'd promised Barton, who'd hightailed it out of town somewhere, he'd look into making him some arrows that held a better charge.

"The Board, Tony," she said and stood beside him. "They're asking questions."

"Yeah? Well, just give 'em the usual bullshit song-and-dance—"

"Not about the projects," she said as he swiped through some screens and brought up some specs for… What was it he was looking into doing again? Steve's shield, wasn't it? Wasn't he thinking about putting in some magnetic relay so Steve wouldn't have to go and chase after the damned thing when he didn't swing it at the right angle for it to rappel back the right way? Fishing in the Potomac for it _once_ was more than enough for him. It was Steve, so he'd do anything for him, but still. Dredging the depths of the Potomac was not exactly something to be crossed off his bucket list.

" _Tony!_ "

"Pepper-pot, I'm listening!"

"Yeah? What did I say? What did I just tell you, Tony?"

"I don't know," he said and tilted his head as he looked at a sketch for Natasha's Widow's bites. That didn't look right, did it? Was _that_ what he was doing? "Something about saving the whales—"

Pepper groaned. "Tony, no. Tony, look at me."

He blinked and acquiesced to her demand, and he saw panic looking back at him. "Tony, the Board. They're asking questions—"

"Yeah, like I said, just tell them—"

"About _you_ , Tony. About where you are. About whether or not you're _dead_."

"So?" he said, not really seeing he issue. "I'm not the CEO. You are. You run the company, I—"

" _Own_ the company, Tony. You still own it. The Board…they're anxious. They're afraid the company's actually being overseen by a dead man. It's… It's not sitting well with them."

"OK, and what am I supposed to do about that?" He motioned over himself. "Can I really go to the Board looking like this and say, yeah, I'm still alive. I'm a _woman_ , but I'm still alive? Look, what does it matter?" he asked at Pepper's unhidden worry. "Even if I am dead, the company goes to Steve, and he trusts you not to run it into the ground as much as I do."

"You know the Board's not going to be happy about that."

"What? That Captain America owns Stark Industries? Hell, if he'd been defrosted back before Howard had died, he probably would have turned the company over to him instead of me."

" _Tony_ —"

"It doesn't matter, Pep. Me? Steve? The mission statement stays the same. There's a trust set up so that no one can touch the funding for the Avengers. I know some of them have been dying to have my ass on a platter from the moment I came back from Afghanistan, but they're not going to. They're not getting the company."

Pepper sighed, her shoulders slumping a little, and there was a little less fight in her voice as she said, "Tony, I don't think I can stave them off much longer. They're talking about filing an injunction—"

"What? For what? What could they possibly—"

"That we release information regarding the status and whereabouts of Tony Stark. They know we're hiding something. You haven't been seen in months—"

"Uh, I just watched a report this morning talking about how Captain America's been seen around town with a gorgeous mystery brunette on his arm, so, yeah, I _have_ been seen in months."

"But they don't know that, Tony! They don't know it's you. They only know that Tony Stark hasn't been seen _anywhere_ since January— And do _not_ bring up Iron Man!" she shouted and pointed at him as he opened his mouth to say just that. "Yes, I know you're Iron Man, but you know there's rumors around about how the suit can operate itself with no one inside it—"

"It kind of _can_ ," he murmured in agreement.

"— _and_ ," she said, stressing the word like she was displeased with him interrupting her, "it's kind of convenient that only Iron Man's been seen since January, and not one of the Avengers has come out and said clearly and definitively just _what_ Tony Stark is up to— And not only that but your own _boyfriend_ —"

"Husband."

" _Husband_ ," she corrected, not even bothering to hide her annoyance at him for cutting off her rant again, "doesn't seem the least bit concerned by your mysterious disappearance. He's been spotted on dates with some woman—"

"That, admittedly, bears a striking resemblance to what they know to be Tony Stark," he said and folded his arms, nestling them just under his breasts, "and, really, it's their own fault for not bothering to ask the real question which is _why_. _Why_ does this woman look so much like Tony Stark? Is she a long-lost sister? A cousin? Or maybe — just maybe — Tony Stark got turned into a woman against his will and _that's_ why no one's panicking, and that's why Steve's been seen with this woman around town. Because it's not just some woman; it's Tony Stark. Honestly, the media's at fault for this whole thing."

"The _media_ ," Pepper said, not buying his deflection in the least.

"Yeah."

"It's _the media's_ fault for not noticing Tony Stark and Natasha— What were you calling yourself?"

"Carbonell," he replied. "Antonia Natasha Carbonell."

He tried not to think about the possessive way Steve had growled that name at him last night, the way he'd said _my Antonia_ and _my Antonia Natasha_. He wasn't sure where Steve had disappeared to now — he thought he remembered something about training with other Natasha and Wilson — and he wasn't exactly in a place where he could take care of any wanton desires that might come of thinking of that harsh and grasping utterance that had made him almost cry out with desperate yearning—

" _Tony?_ "

He blinked and shook his head. OK, maybe he'd been thinking about it more than he'd wanted to.

"Yeah?"

"You were saying?"

"About what?"

Pepper groaned, and Tony tried to remember the last train of thought he'd been on. OK, the last one before the memory of what he and Steve had done last night. Fuck, was it warm in here?

" _Tony!_ "

"Pepper, I don't know what you want me to say. Do you want me to go out and have a press conference and tell the world what happened? Do you really think that's wise?"

"I'm actually surprised it isn't something you'd done before this moment."

He thought about it and said, "Honestly, never occurred to me. I was kind of hoping to get through this without anyone knowing. But now that you mention it— I don't know that it's such a good idea."

Pepper went silent a moment, blinking like she couldn't believe what she'd just heard. "You? Actually think something's a _bad_ idea?"

He made a face at her but said, "No, think about it. If it was just, oh, yeah, hi, I'm Tony Stark, and I'm a woman. One thing entirely. There's not one goddamned thing I can do as a man that I can't do as a woman. But this—" he motioned to his abdomen, "—complicates matters. Not because, oh, gross, Tony Stark's a man and he got knocked up — which is _not_ gross, and anyone that thinks it's gross is just jealous. I mean, yeah I'm not a fucking seahorse, but—"

" _Tony!_ " Pepper cried, clearly exasperated by what she probably thought was a divergent train of thought.

"—but," he said, totally coming back to the point he'd wanted to make, "people put two-and-two together, and what do you get?"

"I don't know," Pepper said, obviously annoyed by his wavy train of thought. "Four."

"No. Here, think about it. Who was Tony Stark very publicly dating before all this started?"

"Captain America."

"Right. Now, Tony Stark's a woman — the _same_ woman that's been seen around town with Captain America. And she is, quite obviously, pregnant. Who are most people going to assume the father is?"

Pepper blinked, and Tony could tell she'd put the pieces of the puzzle together, but she still wasn't seeing the picture it made.

"I don't—"

"It's Captain America's kid."

He put a hand to his belly, protective, like he dared anyone to get through him. Weird. He wasn't sure he'd ever actually felt _protective_ of it before.

"This is Cap's baby," he continued. "Now, you don't think every Hydra fiefdom would love to get their hands on Captain America's baby? And trust me, there's a _lot_ of them left. All over the place. I'm not sure we even scratched the surface of what remains because when the ship went down, it was every man for himself, and some of them banded together, and some of them started their own, and— Look, what I'm saying is that Captain America's kid would be like the golden chalice to any of these assclowns. You know what they did to his pal Barnes. Can you imagine what they would do to his kid?"

"Yours, too," Pepper murmured. "Captain America _and_ Iron Man?" She nodded at Tony's abdomen. "There's a part of me that thinks that kid's going to take over the world."

Tony grinned at her. "Exactly. I just… Believe it or not, I actually don't think me going out there and telling the public that I'm Tony Stark, I'm a woman, and I'm pregnant with Steve Rogers's child is the smartest move to make. And I cannot trust anyone on the Board not to keep their mouths shut about it. I've got, what, a handful of months left. Is there _any_ way you can buy me that time?"

Pepper bit her lip as she raked her gaze over Tony's face, but she frowned and said, "I don't know, Tony. I don't know if I can fight an injunction—"

"Do it. Try it. You have to."

"Tony, it's not that easy—"

"And you think this is?"

"I didn't say—"

But he just waved her off and said, "Whatever. I know. I'm just ridiculously sensitive and have been for the last, I don't know, couple weeks."

There was a little smile on Pepper's face as she said, "Well, I didn't want to say anything…"

Tony tilted his head in amusement at her, and the little super soldier spawn inside of him began to flutter a bit.

"Oh, my god," he muttered and looked down. "Really? Now?"

"What?" Pepper asked, panic suddenly covering her face.

"Nothing. Just a reminder that there's something living inside of me that's looking for attention. That's all."

Pepper's eyes went wide, not with horror but awe. "Is it… Is it moving?"

"Yeah, I guess that's what you'd call it," he said with a shrug.

Pepper made a motion to reach out to his abdomen then stopped herself and looked up to meet his gaze. "Can I…?"

"Really?" he asked, unable to hide the genuine surprise in his voice.

"Yeah, I…" She looked back down at his abdomen but trailed off what she, for whatever reason, couldn't bring herself to say.

He shrugged. "Go ahead. Knock yourself out."

Pepper reached out slowly, tentatively, and rested her hands against the small swell of Tony's abdomen, and some look of wonder came over her face as she felt the fetus move within.

"Oh, my god," she breathed out, amazement coloring her voice. "Tony, you—" She looked up at him, and the wonder turned to slight confusion. "This isn't weird, is it?"

"What? My ex-girlfriend putting her hands on my stomach to feel the movement of the annoying little creature that's growing inside of me? Nah, nothing weird about that."

"You left out the part where you used to be a man," she said but didn't move her hands just yet.

"And we used to have lots of hot, sweaty sex where you used to ride my—"

She pulled her hands away. "And now it's weird." She shook her head and laughed a little to herself before she said, "How are _you?_ "

"Uh, what do you mean?"

"How are you feeling? How are you doing? I don't talk to you enough."

"Eh," he said with a shrug. "Could be worse. Could be a lot better, but could be worse." He frowned and tilted his head in thought. "Wanna get a cup of coffee?"

"What?"

"Coffee. You drink it. Want to get a cup?"

Pepper laughed a little and said, "I don't think you're supposed to be drinking coffee."

He scoffed. "Whatever. The only one that's going to yell at me about it is Steve, and I won't tell him if you don't. And that goes for you, too, J!" he called.

" _I take it Captain Rogers is on a need-to-know basis concerning your caffeine intake?_ "

"Yeah, that's what we'll call it." He turned his attention to Pepper. "Come on, Pep. You must have time, right?"

She sighed a little and checked her watch. "OK, half-an-hour," she said. "I have a Board meeting at one-thirty."

"Ugh, don't say 'board,' I'm already tired. Also, I'm a little insulted that you can make a trip across the country to yell at me—"

"I'm not 'yelling' at you—"

"—about the Board, but you can't be bothered to come out here for my _wedding_. My _wedding_ , Pep. I got... I got married."

He met her clear, soft gaze, happiness and pride shining back at him. He smiled a little despite himself, and she smiled as well and said, "I know. I'm so happy for you, Tony. I wish I could have been there in person—"

He shrugged. "Well, you made an effort. That's what counts, right?" She nodded a little then said, "Are you happy?"

He didn't even have to think. He just nodded at her, smiling stupidly as he did so. "Yeah," he said. "I am."

"Then that's all that matters. Now, come on. You can buy me a coffee, and I can pretend I didn't see you buy one for yourself, too."

He shut down his progress on...whatever it was he was working on...then changed into something appropriate for going out for coffee — OK, it was just a band shirt and yoga pants — and he climbed into the waiting car with Pepper then panicked when he realized that this was probably someone that wouldn't—

"Nice to see you again, former boss," Happy said and glanced at him in the rearview mirror before he pulled away from the curb. "Still lookin' good."

"Happy?" he asked, slightly amused and a hell of a lot relieved. "Uh, aren't you—?"

"Happy insisted," Pepper said and relaxed into the seat.

"Good thing about being head of security, former boss," he said as he maneuvered the car through traffic. "Get to make these kinds of executive decisions. Where to, boss?"

Tony went to say that Starbucks was fine by him, but Pepper piped up the name of some hole-in- the-wall place in Brooklyn he'd raved about the first time Steve had taken him there (because _Steve_ , of all people, had been the one to find it). Tony turned to her, smirking, and said, "Forgot myself there for a second."

"That's OK," she said and patted his hand. "Hormones."

"Not sure what the answer was for all the other times it happened," Happy said, and Pepper smirked and rolled her eyes while Tony frowned and said, "Did you two kidnap me just to abuse me and hurt my feelings?"

Pepper laughed and squeezed his hand. "You're being sensitive again."

"I am? Fuck," he muttered. "God, you want to know how bad I'm getting? Steve and I had probably the hottest sex I've ever had in my life last night, and I burst out sobbing afterward. God, it was so good, and I just started blubbering."

"Not…really something I needed to know," Pepper said and lessened her hold on his hand.

"Did I just make it weird again?"

She weighed her response then said, "Not…" She blinked and smiled at him and then patted his hand once again. "Makes me feel better about certain…conclusions about things I've come to as well."

Tony stared point-blank at her. "Wait, I'm not the best sex you ever had?"

"You _just_ told me I wasn't the best you ever had, either."

Tony shot a glance in Happy's direction then said, "Is this something you really want to discuss in front of—"

"OK by me, ex-boss. Nothing I haven't heard before."

Tony let that sink in a moment before he drew a conclusion, and his eyes went wide and he opened his mouth to blather about it, but Pepper slapped a hand over his mouth and simply said a knowing, " _Yes_."

" _Really?_ " he asked after she'd dropped her hand. Not that he was insulted or surprised, he just… didn't think Happy had it in him.

"Really," she said, smiling, and Tony knew that sort of smile because it was the kind he found his own face breaking into whenever he thought about Steve.

He turned to Happy again, and he leaned forward and lightly punched him in the shoulder and said, "Congratulations, Hap, my man. She's a great gal, isn't she?"

"She's the best, ex-boss."

"You know, if I'm your ex-boss, you can probably call me by my actual name."

"Will do, ex-boss."

The rest of the drive over to Brooklyn was punctuated by light, carefree banter and memories of earlier and less harried days. Tony was even able to forget, for just a moment, his reality and lose himself in bickering with Pepper just like they used to do, the occasional frank utterance from Happy filling in the gaps.

When they got to the café, Tony donned a pair of wire-rimmed, rose-tinted sunglasses, and after Happy had pulled into an empty space at the curb, he followed Pepper out of the car and into the small establishment. He started to ask her to stick around for a while so they could soak up the scenery, but she just smiled and checked her watch and said, "I know. Some other time. Board meeting, remember?"

"Fine," Tony muttered and looked over the chalked menu before he ordered a large of the house drip with a dash of vanilla and a heaping of whipped cream.

"Don't judge," he snapped at the hipster barista, who had looked askance at the slight bulge of Tony's abdomen and had evidently concluded that it wasn't merely from weight gain.

He was going to find some study that showed coffee drinking was A-OK, and he'd shove it in Steve's face and never let him hear the end of it.

Pepper ordered an espresso and got a lot less attitude for it, and as they stood at the counter and waited, a young woman in a tailored ensemble brushed past them, pausing for a moment when she realized that the CEO of Stark Industries was getting caffeine at a hole-in-the-wall in Brooklyn.

"Oh, my goodness!" she said. "Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries!"

She extended her hand and introduced herself, but Tony wasn't paying attention because she wasn't talking to him and he was too busy watching the barista get his order together. He pursed his lips and scowled as he determined that they hadn't put a generous enough helping of whipped cream on his beverage, and he hoped that whatever Pepper had tipped them when she'd paid — if she even had tipped them — was less than adequate. He should have asked for extra whipped cream. He _really_ had been liking his sweets as of late.

But he smiled tightly and took the beverage when it was handed to him, and he sipped it and scowled as he burned the tip of his tongue, and it was then that he realized Pepper was staring guardedly at the door, like she was watching after something she didn't trust.

"What's wrong, sugar doll?"

But she just blinked and said, "Nothing." She smiled at him in a way that was meant to be reassuring but was tinged with something worrisome. She took the espresso-to-go that was handed to her and said, "Come on," as she took a firm hold of his free arm and began to pull him toward the door.

"Pep? What's wrong?"

Pepper just shook her head and led Tony back out onto the street, and they were just about to cross to the car waiting there when that same voice from inside the shop said, "Natasha Carbonell."

Tony stopped and turned, and Pepper murmured beside him, "Tony, _no_ ," but he still turned in the direction of the voice and saw that same put-together young woman from inside the café.

"You _are_ Natasha Carbonell," the woman said, her phone at the ready.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tony said, ignoring Pepper's plea to just get over to the car.

"Don't you?" the woman asked, and Tony realized she was recording him. "Isn't that the name you gave the restaurant when you were seen dining with Captain Rogers several weeks ago? The same Captain Rogers you were seen with at the marriage bureau after that? The same Captain Rogers you were seen with leaving an obstetrician's office on Madison Avenue just the other day?"

"How?" he asked before he could help himself. "We wore disguises."

A sly and predatory smile stretched over the woman's lips, her eyes lighting up like she'd just secured the scoop of the year, and Pepper hissed, "Tony, let's _go_ ," in his ear, but the woman kept her focus on him and said, "Is this _off_ the record, Miss Carbonell, or on it?"

Tony swallowed and looked from the phone then to the woman that he suspected was a reporter. He watched as her lips moved, and he knew there was some kind of sound being made there, but he couldn't understand the words she was quite obviously saying. Not after—

Fuck. Shit, shit— _fuck_. What had he just done?

"We're done here," Pepper said as Tony started to come back to himself just a little, heart thumping wildly in his chest and breaths coming at a faster rate than before.

"Just please, tell me," the woman said. "Is the child Captain Rogers's? Are you pregnant with the child of Captain America, Miss Carbonell?"

"It's none of your business whose it is," Pepper said as she steered Tony in the direction of the car.

But the reporter was undeterred, and she stuck close and again asked, "Are you pregnant with Captain America's baby?"

Tony stopped in his tracks and turned to look right at the reporter, meeting her gaze from behind his rose-tinted glasses. He pulled off his sunglasses, arched an eyebrow, and looked dead straight at her as he said, "So what if I was?"

Silence, and then, " _Oh, no,_ " from Pepper.

The reporter, however, made a face — a smile like she couldn't believe what Tony had just admitted to but was _so_ glad she was recording it — and Pepper latched a firm hand on his arm and said acidly, "That's _all_ you're getting."

As Tony slipped the sunglasses back over his eyes, she pulled Tony over to the back door, and the reporter said, "But the public deserves to know what happened to Tony Stark—"

Tony started to say, "You'd never _believe_ what happened—" but Pepper was louder and fiercer than he was, and she snapped out an angry, " _Nothing! Nothing_ happened to Tony Stark."

"Then why hasn't he been seen in months? And why has the Captain taken up with Natasha Carbonell?" the woman asked as Happy opened the back door, and he and Pepper worked at getting Tony into the car before he could say anything more. "Is she a surrogate for them?"

"No," Pepper said definitively and got into the car with him, and when Happy slammed the door, she said, "Oh, shit. Maybe I should have said 'yes'?"

It was the door slamming that did it. He didn't know why, but it was the door slamming shut and the reporter outside begging for more dirt that made Tony realize—

Shit. Oh, shit. He'd fucked up. He'd _really_ fucked up.

He'd _just_ told Pepper _how long ago_ that he wanted to keep this quiet, and what had he gone and done? Made a snap decision and told a reporter — _on camera_ — that he was pregnant with the child of Captain America. There was a _reason_ he and Steve had worn disguises to the doctor's office.

" _Shit_ ," he muttered under his breath, clutching his cup tight. Shit. Shit— _fuck!_

Happy got into the driver's seat. "Where're we going, boss?"

"Back to the Tower," Pepper said, furiously working her phone. She said a few other things Tony didn't listen to, and he only half paid attention as Pepper put a hand to his arm and said, "I will make this right. I promise, Tony. I will make sure this is handled."

He just swallowed and said with a bit of a bitter laugh, "I really fucked up this time, didn't I?"

"No," Pepper said as she typed something into her phone. "No, she ambushed you. It wasn't your fault."

"But I just gave her—"

"You didn't give her anything. She stole it from you."

"Hydra's going to find out now."

She stopped typing and glared at him. " _What?_ "

He nodded his head, his coffee clutched tightly in his hands. "Hydra. They're going to know. They're going to know it's Steve's, and they're going to—"

Pepper reached out and snagged a firm hold of his arm. "They're not. They're not going to know anything, and they're not going to _do_ anything. I will fix this."

She turned back to her phone and continued to type something, her thumbs slamming against the screen like she was trying to take her frustrations out on her phone.

"But they will. They're going to know, and they're going to come and take—"

He gasped a little, struggling to get oxygen in. He put a hand to his chest and gasped a few more times, and it was only after he felt Pepper's hands on his face that he realized he'd begun to panic, unable to breathe, unable to think — fuck, it was like those attacks he used to get right after New York, when he couldn't even _think_ about a wormhole without curling up into a fetal position.

"Tony, Tony, breathe," Pepper was saying, her face a little fuzzy and her voice somewhat distant. "Breathe for me, Tony."

He felt her stroke her hands over his face, and he put his hands over hers and finally looked up to meet her eyes, and he realized she wasn't the one he needed.

He needed Steve.

"What?" Pepper asked like she was asking him to clarify something. "Steve," he murmured.

Pepper blinked and nodded. "OK. OK, honey, we'll — we'll get him." She turned to the front and said, "Happy, drive. Tower, now."

"Goin' as fast as the traffic'll let me," he said in reply.

Pepper grumbled something before she turned her attention back to Tony. "We'll get there. I promise. Oh, my god, you're shaking. OK, Tony? Listen to me. Deep breaths, OK? I need you to take some deep breaths for me. That's it. That's good."

He took several deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out again. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to block out the thought, but all he could see was some Hydra goon advancing on him, taking advantage of his somewhat vulnerable position, grabbing him, taking him to some lair where he'd be subjected to various experiments and tortures—

He suddenly wondered if there was a slightly more nefarious reason Esmeralda the Delusional had done this to him. Was she Hydra? Was she in cahoots with Hydra? Was Tony just an incubator for some crazy and nefarious Hydra scheme where they tried to grow their very own genius super soldier? He wasn't crazy. Anyone would want a child of both Captain America's and Iron Man's DNA. Fuck, the US Government would probably gladly take one that they could study — off the record, of course — or use to build some sort of arsenal of super soldiers like they'd intended back during the war; the soldiers where Steve was the only successful trial. Maybe they'd gotten more advanced in seventy years? Maybe they'd learned to write the fucking formula down? Because who wouldn't want their very own _Übermensch_ with Steve's strength and Tony's intelligence?

And why stop at one?

Ordinarily, the age JARVIS claimed he physically appeared to be, he would say he, as a woman, had a good ten breeding years left. But if the Goofball Esmeralda could turn him into a fucking woman — and de-age him at that — who was to say she couldn't keep him from aging? Keep him the thirty-six that JARVIS claimed he was? Keep him and continue to breed him with Steve until they had their little army — or they had enough specimens they could breed from that?

"Oh, god, Tony, no, no, don't cry. Honey, it's OK. We'll get Steve. It'll be OK."

God, how could he have been so stupid as to go outside? Or be seen with anyone with any remote ties to Tony Stark? He should never have done it. Should never have asked Steve to go on a date with him. Should have stayed in the building and just lived in his lab until this whole thing was over and he had his old body back again. Because bad things happened to Tony Stark, and bad things happened to people that associated with Tony Stark.

"Yeah, Steve? Look, I just need you to— No, he's fine. He's OK. We went out for— Yes, he's going to be angry you found out, but right now I need you to— Wait, Steve, listen— Steve, I have to warn you, a reporter spotted us. Huh? Yeah, she, she got something out of him. What? Your appointment at the ob/gyn's. Yeah, Tony wasn't thinking. She was trying to trap him, and he didn't figure it out in time. No, I'm trying to— I'll explain when we get there. Here, I just need you to— Yeah, if you could."

Tony felt something shoved against his ear, and from a distance, he heard the most soothing voice imaginable.

" _Honey?_ "

"Steve?"

" _Yeah, honey, what's wrong? What happened?_ "

He sniffled and swallowed. "I fucked up."

" _No, you didn't._ "

"Yeah, I did."

" _No, you didn't. How did you fuck up?_ "

He tried to explain what had happened, but the breath he'd tried to take had turned into a gasp, and before he knew it, he was having a hard time getting any breaths in, which Steve seemed to catch right off the bat.

" _OK. OK, honey, I need you to take deep breaths for me. Can you do that?"_

"I've been trying. Pepper asked me the same, but I— but I— Oh, god, Steve. I can't— I can't. What if she's Hydra, Steve?"

" _Who?_ "

He tried to say 'Esmeralda,' but for some reason, he couldn't get the name out. The only thing he could seem to say was, "What if she's working with them? What if this is some crazy plot for them to get their hands on their very own super soldier?"

" _It's not._ "

"But what if it is? _Fuck_ , how could I have been so _stupid—_ "

" _Tony, it's not a— This isn't a— It's_ not _Hydra._ "

"You don't know that, Steve! How do you know that?"

Steve was silent a moment before he very quietly said, " _Tony, I'm going to do something. I don't know if it's going to work, but I just want to— I just need to try it, OK? Just listen to me. Listen to my voice, all right, Antonia?"_

Tony squeezed his eyes shut at the familiar and intimate name.

" _Listen to me, Antonia. It's OK. It's going to be fine. This isn't a Hydra plot. No one's out to get you or us. Hydra wants you, they have to get through me first. No one's taking that baby from us, least of all Hydra. Do you understand me, Antonia?"_

He swallowed. "Yes, sir," he said just barely above a whisper.

" _Good girl. Now, can you take deep breaths for me? Three deep breaths. I'll count them. One—_ "

Tony took a breath. In. Out.

" _Two—_ "

He took another breath. In. Out.

" _Thre—_ shit!"

Tony's eyes shot open at the epithet.

" _JARVIS, switch me over to the group comm,_ " Steve said, and then Tony heard him addressing the group. " _Falcon, where's that air support? Bruce? Gonna need to call a Code Green. Sorry. Widow, need you to infiltrate — but don't get in too deep. Gonna need you for a lullaby._ "

Tony heard a chorus of responses, which…would have been a cause for concern on anything other than a Starkphone, but as it was, their communications were encrypted enough to cause a big enough headache for anyone trying to tap into them that they'd soon give up. Tony listened to the chatter on the comms a moment before he said, "Steve, where are you?"

There was a grunt like Steve had just hit something, and he heard the telltale cracks of gunfire. " _Mission,"_ he said like nothing had just happened. _"Don't worry about it. Back by dinner._ "

"Um, maybe I should let you—"

" _Are you good? Are you feeling better? Tell me, Tony._ "

" _Oh, Stark?_ " he heard Wilson say over gunfire and the roar of the Hulk somewhere in the distance. " _No wonder Cap's head isn't in the game_."

" _Steve, we're fine_ ," Natasha said. " _Go find a quiet spot and talk your boy down from the ledge_."

" _Are you—?"_ Steve started to say until he was shouted at by both Natasha and Wilson to, " _Go!_ " and he had JARVIS switch him back to a private line.

" _Honey?_ "

"Yeah?"

" _Look, I'm sorry about this. I can't really talk but—_ "

"No, it's fine, I get it—"

And Steve's voice went soft and intimate. " _Antonia, tell me. Are you OK? Did you get that last breath?"_

"Not exactly. You yelled 'shit' and then it sounded like all hell broke loose."

" _Eh, it kind of did— Don't worry! Small op. Me, Nat, Sam, and Bruce. Shouldn't take too long to clean up. I mean it. Are you OK?"_

"No. Steve, I screwed up. I mean, I think I screwed up."

 _"Why? What happened?_ "

"I got caught. I got caught coming out of that café. I think she was a reporter. She knows it's yours. The baby. She thinks I'm still Natasha Carbonell, but she knows it's your baby. I— She tripped me up. I wasn't thinking straight. They know we were at the doctor's — the obstetrician's. They saw us. I accidentally confirmed it. And then I told her— I'm sorry, Steve. I didn't mean—"

" _Antonia, listen to me. It's not your fault. You've been a little forgetful lately. I didn't want to mention it, but your mind's been a little cloudy. She took advantage of you. We'll— We'll deal with it. I promise. Whatever comes of it._ "

"Steve, they're gonna know. Hydra's going to—"

" _I will burn every fucking faction to the ground before I ever let that happen. I promise you that. Besides, they might not even have any use for us like that."_

"You're kidding, right?"

" _Hey, you never know. OK, let's try this again. Three deep breaths. I'll count them off again. OK?"_

"OK."

" _One…_ "

Tony took a breath. In. Out.

" _Two…_ "

"But _Steve_ —"

_"Antonia, what did I tell you? Don't worry about it. We'll deal with it. Whatever comes of it, we'll deal with it. Two…"_

He took another breath. In. Out.

" _Three…_ "

Tony put a firm hand over his abdomen and took one last deep breath. In. Out.

" _Good girl, Antonia. You're such a good girl. Now, are you going to listen to me?_ "

"Yes, sir."

" _Then listen to me. Nothing is going to happen. I'm going to make damned sure of that. You're safe. Our baby is safe. No one's going to harm either one of you. Hydra isn't going to get you. You've designed that Tower to be practically impenetrable. Now, I want you to go back home, dump out that coffee I know you got for yourself, and lose yourself in your lab for a few hours. No sense in me telling you to relax, because I know you won't. So, go work on some of your pet projects, and I'll be home before you know it, OK?"_

"OK."

" _Good. Are you OK? Do you need me to—"_

"Go. Save the world, Steve. Bring home dinner."

He chuckled and said, " _All right, honey. I'll see you soon_."

They said their 'goodbyes,' and the connection cut out. He looked down at the phone in his hand with its blank screen, and he met Pepper's concerned eyes as she reached out and touched his hair.

"You feel better?"

He just nodded and handed her phone back to her, and she stroked a hand down his hair and said, "OK, we're almost there. I already have legal looking into it—"

"Doesn't matter," he said with a shrug.

"Huh?"

"People are going to find out. There's nothing we can do to stop it now. I didn't just _tell her_ , Pep. She's got me on camera saying it. I didn't deny it was Steve's. I fucking _told her_ it was Steve's. In the next couple hours, that's all anyone's going to be talking about. Captain America's bastard child — which is bullshit 'cause we're totally married, and really? Has no one thought to check the county clerk's office for that sort of thing? It's public record."

"They're going to be all over us for this," Pepper murmured. "There's going to be an injunction now. No question."

"I don't know," he said offhandedly. "Say I'm in a coma."

"Tony—"

"What? Do you have a better suggestion? I'm all ears if you do."

"No," Pepper admitted in defeat. "But I can't tell them you're in a coma. They'll want _proof_."

"Any pics from any of my benders we can doctor up?"

" _Tony_ —"

"What? It's a legit means of trying to pull one over on the Board. You really think I can waltz in there and tell them _I'm_ Tony Stark? They'll never believe that."

Pepper just put her hand on his arm, gently, like she was trying to break bad news to him. "We may just have to."

Happy pulled into the basement garage not long after that, and as he popped open the door, Pepper put her hand on his arm again and asked if he wanted her to ride up in the elevator with him. He assured her he was a big boy that could get to his penthouse on his own, and she smiled a little at him, teary and nervous and said she would find a way to make this right for him.

"Not your problem to fix," he said then kissed her cheek and got out of the car. He went over to the elevator for the personal floors and pressed the button, and he saw that Happy was waiting there, presumably to make sure he got onto the elevator OK, but Tony…really needed to lock those garage doors before he could go anywhere, and he motioned for Happy to leave. Happy put down the window and called out, "Just wanna make sure you get on OK, ex-boss."

"I'm fine, Happy. You don't need to stick around. And tell your new boss I'm not made of glass. I'll be OK."

Pepper put her own window down, but Tony motioned them away again, and Pepper said, "Are you sure?"

Tony grimaced and finally admitted, "I want to lock up behind you. I need to make sure it's locked when you go."

Pepper just nodded, and she turned back to Happy and said, "It's OK. We can go."

"All right," Happy said, like he didn't approve but didn't have a choice, and he circled the car around before he drove up and out the exit ramp. Tony made sure the car was clear then hit the button to shut and lock the doors, the elevator doors opening immediately thereafter.

"Always got my back, J," he said and stepped onto the car. " _Of course, Sir_ ," JARVIS replied without hesitation.

JARVIS took him up to the penthouse, and he stepped off into the quiet, and he looked around a moment then said, "J?"

" _Sir?_ "

"Is there— Is there any way to tell or to know? Do I have a weapon growing inside of me?"

" _I'm not sure I follow, Sir._ "

"This — this thing. This baby. Is it just a baby? It's not something… It's not something more evil than that, right? Is there any way to tell? I'm not just an incubator for one of Hydra's more deranged plots, am I?"

" _I shouldn't think so, Sir. The child was conceived by you and Captain Rogers alone. The only outside interference was from the Goddess Esmeralda, who provided the body for you to conceive with. While I am unfamiliar with any contacts the Goddess might have, there is nothing in the database that suggests that Hydra is aware of her existence_."

"Yeah, but we can't even find Loki's glow stick or Strucker, so for all we know, there's some gaps in that database."

He went over and sat down on the couch, perching uneasily on the edge of a cushion, and he looked down at the small swell of his abdomen and swallowed and put a hand to it, rubbing protectively like he could somehow will all the evil away, like he could instill some sort of protection against the elements — or Hydra — by touch alone.

"I left my coffee in the car, didn't I?" he murmured.

" _I am not aware of you bringing anything with you into the penthouse. I think it is wise to believe that you indeed left your beverage in the car with Miss Potts and Mr. Hogan."_

"Whatever," he muttered and put his other hand to his abdomen, rubbing it, protecting it, trying to remember Steve's soothing assurance that nothing was going to get them. He wasn't just being used for a weapon.

But what if he was?

Steve wanted to believe the best in people and in things. That belief had been tested, especially in the reveal that SHIELD had been infiltrated by Hydra pretty much from the start, but he knew deep down that Steve still trusted. He still saw good in the world. Tony was beginning to sense that Steve was starting to limit his belief in that 'good' to himself and his teammates, but he still saw some amount of good, and he still possessed some amount of optimism. Hydra would not get them because Steve would not let them. Because Steve trusted that he wouldn't let Hydra get them.

But what if…and hear him out…what if Steve was _wrong?_

This fetus didn't just have the potential to be a child with his eyes and Steve's never-say-die attitude. This fetus could very much be a weapon. Wasn't Steve, when it came down to it, a weapon? One with autonomy and free will, maybe, but still a weapon. He was designed as a weapon. A super soldier, the pinnacle of human perfection, a man with one job and one mission in life: to soldier, to kill. It was a miracle no one had yet nabbed him and tried to stud him for a little legion of super soldiers, ones with Steve's strength but none of his will. That could be programmed out of them.

But here— Here was one that did not just have the potential for Steve's strength but Tony's intelligence. OK, not that Steve was an idiot, but with Tony's genes in the mix, there was an even greater potential for a little super-human super-genius for Hydra to get their hands on, to train, to soldier for them and design weapons the world could not possibly yet imagine.

The perfect weapon.

The perfect weapon because it was the combination of Iron Man and Captain America and thus had built into its DNA everything that made those men special. Granted, that was no guarantee the child would possess the serum in its blood. Steve's DNA could very well have not been touched by the serum, and thus, whatever child was born of the union would have in it genes from a short, scrawny, sickly yet scrappy underdog from the wrong side of the tracks.

Not that the serum was what made Steve special.

No, the serum merely amplified what was already there. Captain America was who he was because Steve Rogers was who he was. Because he was that earnest, that steadfast, that honest and cunning and intelligent and detailed and precise and caring and charitable and—

"Jesus, Stark, why don't you marry him already?" he mused aloud with a small laugh and wiped at the stupid fucking tears that were collecting in his eyes again. Jesus Christ, talk about an emotional fucking roller coaster.

But he couldn't stop the tears, and instead, he let them flow freely as he rubbed his belly — an action that made his libido sing when Steve did it but he was beginning to find merely gave comfort when he himself did it. He cried, and he lay down on the couch and curled up on himself and pressed his face into the pillow, soaking it with tears of remorse and tears of worry.

Because much as he loved Steve, and much as he trusted Steve, Steve was not always right. No matter how much he thought he was.

~*~

He must have fallen asleep not long after he'd curled up on the couch because he awoke to the most glorious scent of broiled steak and potatoes, and when he opened his eyes and looked out at the vista beyond the plate glass, it was evident the sun was beginning to set. He yawned and sat up, and he rubbed at his belly a little then pushed himself up. How long had he been out for?

He went to take a step toward the kitchen, but his bladder had other ideas, and he went upstairs to relieve himself first then came back down and padded into the kitchen.

Steve was at the stove, pulling a just-cooked steak off a pan and was setting it onto a plate with a side of steak fries. Both the fries and the steak only looked the tiniest bit charred, but he supposed it was the thought that counted. There were two place settings set down on the island, and Tony sat down in his usual chair, his nose scrunching at the sight of a fresh garden salad in front of him. That looked like it had been bought pre-made.

"Don't make a face," Steve said without turning around. "Fresh vegetables are good for you."

"This is rabbit food, Steve. Do I look like a rabbit to you?"

"No," Steve said as he turned around. He pecked a kiss against Tony's lips then set one of the plates down in front of him. "Told you I'd be home," he said, unable to hide the smug preen in his voice, "and I even brought dinner. Looks pretty good if I say so myself."

"I suppose. You can keep your spot as the clan alpha for another day," Tony said while Steve sat down and helped himself to the steak sauce. He smirked a little at Tony's comment but didn't say anything to it, but he did point at Tony's salad and wordlessly implore him to eat it.

"Fine," Tony said and picked up his fork. "But don't think I'm going to enjoy it."

"You never enjoy things that are actually good for you."

"I don't know," he said and speared at a slice of tomato. "I kind of enjoyed what we did last night."

Steve side-eyed him and gave him another smirk but again didn't say anything, and Tony speared a cucumber slice to add to his fork with the tomato and said, "OK, seriously, how mad are you at me? Really? 'cause this whole quiet, nice thing is kind of setting my teeth on edge, and I'm waiting for the ball to drop."

Steve shook his head as he cut into his steak. "I'm not mad at you," he said without looking at him.

"Yeah, gonna call bullshit on that one, old man. You can't even look at me."

"Can't look. Cutting."

"Then stop cutting and look at me."

He did, and Tony saw not anger staring back at him but thinly-veiled worry, and Tony's defenses fell as he said, "Look, Steve, I didn't—"

"Pepper and Nat think it would be a good idea for us to get out of town for a few days," Steve said as he went back to his dinner. "Until this blows over, anyway."

"Blows over?" he asked without yet having taken a bite of his salad. "Why? How bad is it?"

Steve stopped cutting. He glanced up, his line of sight focused ahead of him like he was contemplating something rather than actually looking at something, and he took a breath and cleared his throat.

"Showed up on TMZ at 2:07 p.m. The news networks picked it up at 2:22. The speculation is now that Tony Stark is dead, has been dead, the suit is running itself, and I was having an affair with 'Natasha Carbonell' while we together. However, no one can find any information on this Natasha, it's presumed she was an… _escort_ …before we ended up together, I was only with you to secure funding for the team—"

Tony dropped his fork, his appetite suddenly gone. "They think we're both assholes, don't they?"

"Pretty much," Steve said with a sad shrug. "Anyway, Pepper and Nat think the best thing is to just ignore it. I guess they consider this something called a 'Friday night news dump'?"

"Yeah, it's where you release bad news late on Friday afternoon, and it gets buried over the weekend. People forget about it and move onto the next thing by Monday. Are there people downstairs?"

"Yeah," Steve said and shoved a fry in his mouth.

"Did you bump into any?"

He shook his head and used another fry to soak up some of the juice on his plate. "No, came in by jet. Haven't been downstairs since yesterday."

"Good. Don't need Captain America charged with assault and battery of some fucking paparazzo that deserves whatever shit he gets."

Steve motioned to his barely-touched plate. "Eat. I already have a couple bags packed for us. We'll… I know a place we can go for the weekend."

Tony twitched his nose and picked up a fry. "Not really hungry now."

"I know, but you need to eat. When's the last time you ate?"

He considered the fry in his grasp and thought back. "Breakfast this morning, I guess."

Steve just motioned harder at his plate. "Then you need to eat. Please? A few bites for me?"

He stuck the fry in his mouth and chewed it, making sure to catch Steve's eye as he did so. Steve nodded in approval and went back to his plate, and Tony stared down at his.

The fry did taste good, and he was pretty hungry, but knowing the mess he'd just caused — again — didn't sit well with him, and it was hard to eat when all he could think about was how he'd fucked up and how everyone now _sort of_ knew what had been going on with the Avengers the past few months and, evidently, didn't think much of either him _or_ Steve when it came to their relationship.

Which meant—

"Wait, they think I'm…and that you… Didn't anybody think to, I don't know, check the county clerk's office? They saw us down there. The one on file is for Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, not Natasha Carbonell."

"I don't know," Steve said with a slight shake of his head. He cut off another bite of steak, and he paused before he took the bite and glanced at Tony. "You know, we might not have a choice."

"What do you mean?" Tony asked and finally took a bite of salad. At least it was dressed with a vinaigrette so it wasn't _completely_ awful.

"We may have to come out and tell people the truth. Are you going to be OK with that?"

Tony stabbed another forkful of lettuce. "Are you?" he asked, deflecting rather than answering.

"Might not have a choice," Steve replied, tapping the tip of the knife against his plate in nervous thought. "Might have to be OK with it even if I'm not."

"Look," Tony said and set his fork down. "What are we going to do? Come out and say Cap and Natasha are just really good friends? Which isn't _exactly_ a lie if we're talking about the redhead that could kill me with her pinky. But look at what I did at my first press conference after that whole thing with— with Obie, with what happened with Obie. What did I do?"

"Stupidly told everyone you were Iron Man."

He ignored the 'stupidly' part and said, "Yeah, because Agent was a good company man, but he evidently sucked at cover stories. A body guard, Steve. He wanted me to say Iron Man was a _body guard_. Was anyone really going to believe that?"

"Guess we'll never know," Steve said with a lazy shrug.

"I just—" He heaved out a sigh and pushed at the fries on his plate with his fork. "Maybe telling the truth wouldn't be the worst thing in the world? It might freak some people out, and some people wouldn't believe it anyway, but maybe… Look, it's not a path I'm crazy about taking, but given the alternative, maybe this is what we have to do? I know it would make us even more vulnerable than we already are, and I'll _really_ have a price on my head from Hydra after this, but I don't think we have much of a choice left. If this doesn't blow over by this weekend, we may just have to bite the bullet and admit the truth."

He watched as Steve contemplated this, his gaze a little fuzzy and distant, before he shook his head and said, "Gonna have a lot of people that won't believe it regardless."

"Well, that's on them, not us."

"And anyone that does believe it — what does that say about this world we live in? Where a man can be turned into a woman with a snap of the fingers?"

"Are we also forgetting the part where I'm pregnant?"

Steve smiled a little at him. "Well, I don't think we can blame Esmeralda for that."

"The actual you putting your dick in me and filling me with a metric ton of come? No, that's all on you, babe."

Steve sighed some. "Tony."

"OK, maybe it wasn't a _metric ton_. But yeah, OK, the _Goddess_ didn't knock me up—"

"She's not a _goddess_ ," Steve grumbled as he shoved another bite of food into his mouth.

Tony hummed a little and ignored that and continued, "She just stuck me in a body that could get knocked up. Did the rest on my own."

"I helped," Steve muttered petulantly.

Tony patted his arm. "Of course you did, babe."

Steve pointed at his barely-touched plate, and Tony huffed.

"Fine," he muttered, and they ate in silence a few minutes before Tony said, "So, this place?"

"Ex-SHIELD safe-house upstate. According to Nat, it's still there. Should be OK to hide out at for the weekend."

Tony thought about this, tapping the tip of his knife against his chin. "Hmm…a whole weekend, just you and me and a big, empty house. Whatever could we _possibly_ do to entertain ourselves?"

Steve side-eyed him. "You up for it?"

"Try me, big fella," he said with a lusty growl that…he totally didn't intend to sound so wickedly depraved.

Fuck, he couldn't believe how horny he'd been the past several weeks. He wasn't sure he'd make it if this kept up.

He watched as Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath that he let out through his nose, and he opened his eyes again and shot a look at Tony and said, "Don't do that."

"Dirty, horny old man," Tony said not without affection. "Hey, question."

"Huh?"

"You have a ridiculously high libido that, let's be honest, I'm going to have a very hard time keeping up with when I get older."

Steve just raised a pointed eyebrow at him.

"But I take it this is an effect of the serum, yeah? I mean, unless you were a sickly runt with a crazy-high sex drive, but that doesn't usually follow."

"What's your question, Tony?"

"Hmm? Oh. How the fuck did you not go crazy during the war? I mean, I see the way you are now, and I'm guessing that's not a side effect of that seventy-year ice bath you took. I can only assume you had that beforehand, so… Seriously, how did you deal with it? _Especially_ considering that you claimed to have been so inexperienced when we started this?"

Steve smiled a little, thin and somewhat bemused but with a hint of pain behind it. "Well, luckily, there was a war going on, so that helped as a distraction. But there were… You had ways of dealing with it."

"You're not going to tell me, are you?"

He shrugged. "There's nothing really to tell. You managed. Sometimes, you had bigger things to worry about." He motioned to Tony's plate. "Eat before it gets cold. I want to get on the road pretty soon."

"Yeah? If the vultures are all still downstairs, how are we supposed to get past them?"

"They block the garage bay, Thor and Bruce promised they'd offer a distraction."

Tony made a face. "Oh, they're not gonna kiss, are they? I mean, _not_ to say that they couldn't — clearly — but, yeah, I just don't think they're right for each other. Plus, I mean, Thor's got Jane, and you know I love Brucie and all, but yeah, thinking he might be a slight step down from the brilliant and gorgeous Dr. Foster."

Steve just smiled a little and shook his head then pointed at Tony's plate and said, "I'm not going to tell you again. Eat."


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: I actually debated whether or not to post this chapter because Tony has a dream in this one where he's, for all intents and purposes, raped. It's just a dream, but it's described in part. Also, I'm not sure Tony's method of dealing with the squicky feelings it leaves behind is the healthiest.

* * *

It was going for dusk by the time they were pulling out of the garage, Thor and Bruce performing their promised distraction at the front of the building (some announcement of some charity thing — Tony didn't get the details, though he was pretty sure he heard the words 'dunk tank' uttered at some point), Steve behind the wheel, and a warning from Tony not to drive like the maniac he usually did.

"Seriously, Steve, you're ninety-five. Drive like it."

Steve just gunned it onto the street.

"Damn it, Steve! What did I tell you?"

Steve liked to claim he was some ninety-five-year-old man, but he was a ninety-five-year-old man that only had about twenty-nine years' worth of experience to draw on. That meant that instead of driving like the ninety-five-year-old grandpa he claimed he was, he drove like the asshole twenty- nine-year old he _really_ was, speeding, swerving, and obeying the most minimal of traffic laws.

Which was totally OK, he'd promised Tony time and again.

Why?

"'Cause I'm Captain America."

More like he was a hair-splitting pain-in-the-ass, but what did Tony know?

But as much of an ass as Steve could be behind the wheel, Tony still trusted him. He wasn't a huge fan of letting other people drive him, and much as he might have teased Steve about his driving skills, he was actually more than OK with them. Not only were Steve's reflexes sharp as a tack, but he knew Steve was not about to let anything bad happen to him. Besides, it could have been worse. Steve could have insisted on them taking his fucking _bike_ upstate. Yeah, several hours on the back of a hog. Just the way Tony would have wanted to start his weekend.

Yeah, OK, riding on Steve's motorcycle wasn't the _worst_ thing in the world. Yeah, OK, gun to his head, he actually found it kind of hot. But not for two fucking hours or more at speeds of upwards of seventy miles an hour or better. A fucking helmet wasn't going to do much to protect _anyone_ at that speed — not even Captain Freezer-burn.

What? Steve had spent seventy years as a popsicle. It didn't mean he didn't love him. It just meant he'd spent seventy years in a deep-freeze, and Tony sometimes had the sense of humor of a fifteen-year-old.

Anyway, much as Steve liked his bike and was able to zip around town with it, Steve _also_ had a penchant for fast cars. Honestly, Steve had grown up dirt-poor — there was no question about that — but when offered the choice, Steve Rogers, as it turned out, had expensive taste, and one of those tastes was for fast sports cars. He could still remember the look of awe that had come over Steve's face the first time he'd taken him out to Malibu (obviously when there was still a house there). Tony's workshop in New York was nothing compared to the setup he had out in California — the machines, the 'bots, the assorted pieces of junk like Howard's jukebox (that Steve, no surprise, had loved; Tony was actually glad he'd had the foresight to ship that to New York before that whole thing with the Mandarin had happened — it currently sat in what he'd dubbed 'Steve's Corner' of his lab), and the cars. Steve had whistled and shoved his hands in his pockets before he'd taken a stroll through the collection, marveling at refurbished hotrods and slick, new speedsters alike, and Tony had offered to give him one for Christmas, but Steve had shook his head and said 'no,' clearly horrified by the idea of someone just _giving_ him something so evidently expensive and rare.

And yet, he was pretty sure Steve was on everything he owned as a co-owner now. He wondered if Steve was aware of that.

Steve cut across Midtown to take the West Side Highway uptown, and Tony settled in and tried to relax as he left the driving up to Steve. He began to fiddle with the radio, an attempt to find something they both could enjoy, which was easier said than done as Tony was more of a Black Sabbath-AC/DC kind of guy and Steve…was not. He could still see the look of forced pleasure on Steve's face when he'd tried to introduce him to Led Zeppelin not long after they'd started dating. 'Stairway to Heaven' had not impressed him nor had 'Kashmir,' but 'The Rain Song' hadn't gone over _too_ badly. Fucking figured. It was a ballad.

He completely bypassed terrestrial radio and instead went for satellite, flipping through stations for something neutral to leave on. He hit upon some '70s station and was just about to turn it off when Steve said, "No! Wait!" and put a hand out to stop him from changing it.

Tony listened for a second and frowned at him. "Lynyrd Skynyrd? Really?"

"I like this song," Steve offered as explanation and used the steering wheel controls to turn the volume up.

Tony sat in silence a moment and listened to the song, and he thought about the lyrics a second and said, "Trying to tell me something?"

"No, I just like it," he replied then quietly sang along to the 'and this bird you cannot change' line which…seemed a lot more fucking fitting than either one of them probably wanted to admit.

Steve hooked a right onto Twelfth Avenue and floored it up the roadway, humming along with the song and tapping the beat out on the steering wheel, and Tony watched in slightly bemused amazement as this relic from the '40s rocked out to 'Free Bird' of all songs.

"I feel like I need to have a lighter out," Tony said and made the hand motion for holding a lit lighter up. "I mean, isn't it customary for this song?" he added, but Steve shushed him, and he huffed and sat back in his seat, watching as they passed through green light after green light on the drive uptown, waiting for the long guitar solo that followed through the end of the song. No way did Steve enjoy _that_ part of the song.

They coasted up the roadway, the traffic a steady flow even at this time of evening. The Friday evening rush was all but over, and the tunnels and bridges were presumably pretty clear by that point, not that Tony knew exactly where Steve was taking them. 'Upstate' really could mean anything from Westchester to Buffalo to Albany and everything in between. Knowing SHIELD, it was probably in the bumfuckiest part of the state.

Which, to a New Yorker, was pretty much anything outside the island of Manhattan.

The sun was setting to the west, the Hudson a dark line separating the island from the mainland across the way. Deciding not to worry himself about their destination just yet, Tony contented himself by watching the steady stream of lights from the buildings that lined the roadway to his right. By chance, he spied a speed limit sign attached to a streetlamp and noted the posted speed of 50 MPH. He stole a glance over at the speedometer and saw the digital readout hold steady at 67. Funnily enough, he knew Steve was actually working to pace himself at that speed.

The song finally got to the guitar solo part once Twelfth Avenue had turned into more of a limited-access highway, and Tony went to turn the volume down, but Steve said, "No, wait!" and pressed the button on the steering wheel to turn the volume up a little louder. Tony sat back, gobsmacked.

" _Really?_ " he asked, his voice squeaking a little in disbelief. God, he hated this voice sometimes.

But Steve just put a finger to his own lips to shush Tony, and Tony sat and watched as Steve tapped out the rhythm to the song as he gunned it up the highway, signs for the Henry Hudson Parkway in the distance.

"Fucking amazing," Tony finally said once the song began to fade out and was replaced by another one.

"What?"

"Hmm? Oh, I'm just trying to figure out how you can love the shit out of 'Free Bird' but not like 'Stairway to Heaven' or 'War Pigs.'"

Steve just shrugged. "Guess it's just one of those things."

"But it doesn't make any sense."

"Why?"

"Because! It doesn't. Look, Skynyrd isn't exactly Zeppelin or Sabbath, but it's still not— You're from _before_ electric guitars."

"So?"

"I don't understand how or _why_ you can love 'Free Bird' but not those other ones."

Steve shrugged again, concentration focused on the steady flow of red taillights ahead of him. "I don't know. I just do. Maybe it's just got more of a tune than those other ones you've forced me to listen to." He shook his head a little and added, "Music today just doesn't… It doesn't have rhythm. It doesn't have a tune. It's… It's _boring_."

Tony just stared at him a little before he pointed at the radio and said, "Yeah, that song's, like, forty years old. This is the '70s station. All these songs are forty years old."

Steve shot a quick smile over at him. "Maybe that's why I like 'em. They're old."

He went to argue that the other songs he'd tried to introduce Steve to were just as old, but he let it slide. It was easier that way. Steve would just find some way to talk his way around it again.

And people said Tony could talk his way into and out of things. Clearly these people had never really stopped to think about the shit Steve Rogers could and had gotten away with just by virtue of exploiting some technicality.

So, he made a 'hmm' sound but said nothing to that, and he went back to relaxing in his seat as Steve zipped them up what had turned into the Henry Hudson Parkway, enjoying the comfortable silence the drive afforded them.

In the past, he'd been the type to try and fill those kinds of voids. If people weren't talking, then clearly something was wrong, he'd always felt. Plus, silence, he'd found, was uncomfortable.

Pepper was probably the first relationship he'd had where he'd found it was OK not to have to fill every single moment of interaction with someone with noise of some kind. Well, maybe Rhodey, but that was a different kind of relationship entirely. Plus, he'd known and been friends with Rhodey for well over half his life, so there existed a familiarity and an understanding already. No, they didn't always have to talk. They could hang and just watch TV or stuff their faces or play video games and not have to spend the entire time talking to each other (unless it was smack-talk as they battled each other over whatever-the-fuck shoot-'em-up game Rhodey had brought with him this time).

Sexual relationships were a different thing entirely. He hadn't had a lot of 'long-term' relationships— Yeah, OK, outside of Pepper and Steve, he hadn't had any. He'd had flings, though, affairs that had lasted more than a few hours, and he'd always found the silence that came between bouts of fucking to be kind of off-putting and uncomfortable. If he wasn't talking or fucking, what good was he to anyone? And so he talked. A lot. About anything and everything, really. Nervous conversation was hell of a lot better than nervous silence.

But then Pepper had shown him it was OK not to have to fill every single void with sound, and with Steve, it just came easy. He'd first discovered that not long after Steve and the other Avengers had moved in. Steve found his way down to Tony's workshop-cum-lab more than any of the others, and at first, it was for stupid, bullshit stuff like arrangements and weapons and the like. Purely business.

But then one day Steve had brought a sketch pad and asked if Tony minded if he tried his hand at sketching one of the Iron Man suits. Tony had shrugged and said to knock himself out, and so Steve had planted himself on a chair and begun drawing. At first, Tony felt the need to make nervous conversation, but Steve had just smiled in that soft and warm way that he had and told him he didn't have to entertain him. He could go back to working on his projects if he wanted. To be honest, Tony hadn't been sure how to take that. Was he being rejected? Dismissed? Put down? It had happened not long after…that weird thing had happened to him after New York, and so he was a little sensitive to Steve and his behavior toward him.

But Steve had just sat there, happily sketching away, and so Tony had gone back to his projects. After a while, he forgot that Steve was even there, but a cursory glance in the direction he'd last seen him had shown Steve to be marveling at some prototype or another Tony'd had stationed there. He didn't say anything to him, and Steve never asked anything — just looked over the prototype and began to sketch it, brow furrowed in concentration as he evidently tried to get the contours right.

(He later found that Steve wasn't just sketching robots and military-grade armors; he'd been sketching Tony as well and had been for some time. He still did sketch Tony, but now that he didn't have to hide it, Tony knew exactly when he was doing it and usually ended up ruining the whole thing by trying to model for him in either goofy or provocative poses. Steve actually threw his pencil at him one time. Then they'd had sex. Honestly, it was a win for everyone.)

So, as he came to find out, sharing silence with Steve was not the nerve-wracking endeavor that it had once been for him. It was actually kind of nice, safe, comforting. He didn't feel the need to perform or pretend with Steve, and so he could sit there and work and wallow in his thoughts, Steve's quiet presence a study anchor for him to latch hold to. It was OK not to have to fill every single void with sound. Steve wasn't going to get bored with him just because he wasn't entertaining him constantly, and Tony knew that Steve, sometimes, just enjoyed knowing that Tony was there with him, too.

Though he'd never admit it to anyone, Tony knew Steve really didn't like being alone if he could help it.

"So, where exactly 'upstate' are we going?" he asked when the George Washington Bridge first came into view.

"Former SHIELD safe house," Steve said.

"Yeah, I know that. But _where?_ Contrary to popular belief, I am aware of the fact that the map does not end at the Hudson River."

"It doesn't?" Steve asked, but there was a hint of a smile on his face.

Tony snorted a laugh. "Yeah, laugh it up, Brooklyn Boy. I'm surprised you're not still shocked at the fact that there's a whole world out there beyond the East River."

"Oh, I knew that," he said and maneuvered the car into the furthest left lane, using his turn signal for a fraction of a second. "Sometimes, when I was able to find my way out of the workhouse, I'd see the bright, shining lights of the city off in the distance — like the gleaming towers of Oz — and I'd think about how swell it would be to grab a couple of nickels and make my way over there."

"You know, sometimes I can't tell when you're joking and when you're serious."

"I did get into the city a couple times," he said, brushing off Tony's comment. "Buck and I went up to the Roseland Ballroom one time. He had a couple of dames— broads— _women_ for us to partner up with—"

"And, don't tell me. Yours left you high and dry."

Steve stole a quick glance at him, the amber of the passing streetlights reflecting off his face. "How'd you guess?"

"Just a hunch," he said with a shrug. "So, what happened after that?"

"Not a thing. Buck got two for the price of one, and I got—"

He clammed up, closing his mouth and keeping his focus on the road ahead of him, and Tony sat up some, his curiosity piqued by Steve's sudden silence.

"You got _what?_ " he pressed.

He watched as Steve swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, and his jaw did that clenching thing it did when he was tensed up and wasn't quite sure how to expel that tension.

"I, uh…" He cleared his throat. "You're not my first fella."

Tony sat upright, jaw dropped.

"I mean, you're the first fella I ever did _that_ with!" he said quickly, lest Tony suspect anything tawdry or untoward about what he'd done in the past. "But you're not the first fella I ever… _kissed_ , if you want to know the truth."

"Just kissed?" he asked because that was about the only thing he could wrap his mind around at the moment.

Steve flushed a little, like he'd been caught out. "I don't— It wasn't—" He shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Was it bad?"

Steve was silent a moment before he said a quiet and somewhat distant, "No."

"You liked this _fella_ , didn't you?"

Steve didn't say anything.

"What happened to him?"

"Dunno.  Never… Dunno."

But Tony shook his head, tamping down that odd, prickling feeling of jealousy that had reared its ugly head at the idea that he wasn't Steve's first. It wasn't fair to Steve, either. Steve was far from his first, so why should it bother him that Steve had had another _fella_ long before he was a disgruntled annoyance in his father's eye?

"I don't mean that. I mean what happened. Between you two?"

"Nothing," he said, his voice flat. "We kissed. We…touched…each other. Didn't go beyond that."

"You know, if you're afraid I'm going to take offense—"

"Not that," Steve said with a shake of his head. "Just nothing beyond that ever happened. Tough to find the time or the place to do even what we did."

Tony made another 'hmm' sound then said, "But what _happened?_ I take it you weren't writing coded love letters to each other during the war."

Steve was silent again, and there was some stupid, fucking Olivia Newton-John song playing quietly on the radio. Tony went to change the station, but Steve started talking again before he could, and the thought went right out of his head.

"Buck knew. About me. About…that fella. Told me it was stupid and dangerous and I was just going to get hurt or thrown in jail or worse. I…knew he was right." He shrugged. "I listened to him."

Tony tried to peel away what had been said to find exactly what _hadn't_ been said. "You didn't want to. Listen to him, I mean."

"He was right," Steve said, not exactly answering his question. "It was tough to lead that kind of life back in those days. And I— I mean, I _did_ want to get married eventually. I did want a family."

"But you wanted to suck brain, too."

Steve heaved out a sigh but didn't deny Tony's accusation.

"Don't worry about it, babe. I'm not judging you. _Clearly_ , I am in no position to judge anyone about their lifestyle choices. So, did this fella have a name or was this one of those sordid trysts—"

"No! It— I mean, it wasn't like that. It was…"

He went quiet again, and Tony waited for him to pick up the thought, but Steve just concentrated on the road until, evidently, the music had gotten to be too much for him, and he glared at the radio display and said, "What the hell is this?"

"'70s soft rock, evidently," Tony said and changed the station to something less saccharine. Somehow, he must have hit some psychedelic '60s station, going by the… _whatever_ the fuck was playing at the moment.

He peered at the readout display just as Steve turned his attention to it and said, "What in the _hell?_ "

"Early Pink Floyd," Tony said. "Before they started recording stuff people actually wanted to listen to."

Steve just hit the button on the steering wheel to change the station, which landed on what sounded like '50s doo-wop. That lasted all of a second-and-a-half before the station changed again to something else, and Tony had to look at the display to see what it even was. Something '40s, evidently. Jukebox Saturday Night.

He shifted his gaze over to Steve to see how he was reacting, and he watched as Steve stared straight ahead at the road, clenched his jaw, swallowed, and then reached over and jabbed the power button so hard that Tony almost thought he'd broken it.

He didn't say a word. He just pulled his hand back and set it back on the wheel at the two o'clock position and continued to focus his attention on the road, and a little voice in the back of Tony's head wondered if this portended bad things to come for the weekend ahead.

He leaned his head back against the headrest and continued to watch Steve, gazing at his profile, following the sharp contours of his nose and his lips and his chin. He watched as Steve swallowed again and moistened his lips and said, "Sorry."

"For?"

"That was— I shouldn't have—"

Tony shrugged. "I pried too much. No big deal. Your past is yours. None of my business."

But Steve shook his head a little, gaze still focused on the road ahead of him. "I still didn't— You didn't ask anything— It was nothing— It wasn't like us."

He shot a quick glance over at Tony as though to drive home the sincerity and gravity of his words. Tony met his eyes and held them a moment before Steve turned his attention back to the road.

"It wasn't anything like that. It was just… You know sometimes, even now, it still feels like…That stuff only happened a few years ago for me. It's been decades for everyone else."

Tony snorted a laugh. "Hell, I wasn't even born yet."

Steve's jaw tensed and did that funny thing it did when he was grinding his teeth together. "I know," he muttered, and Tony sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Don't start that again."

"Start what?"

"That you're too old for me."

"Well, I am." He shot another quick glance over at Tony. "I'm old enough to be your grandfather."

"And yet young enough to be my boy-toy. It's an amazing relationship. Nothing like it in the history of the world. We should count ourselves lucky."

But Steve just sighed and murmured a somewhat sad, " _Tony_ …"

"Nope," he said and shook his head. "Don't even start that shit."

"I'm really robbing the cradle, you know."

"You're really not, you know," he replied in the same matter-of-fact tone. "And don't forget: soul mates. The crazy space lady said so."

"Well, if the crazy space lady said so…"

Tony reached over to set his hand on Steve's thigh. He gave it a gentle squeeze and said, "Steven, you are _not_ too old for me. If anything, I'm probably a _little_ too old for you."

"That's not possible. I'm fifty-two years older than you are."

Tony heaved out a breath but didn't move his hand from Steve's thigh. "Yeah, and twenty-five of those years were spent in a glacier."

Steve did nothing but grind his teeth together some more. Tony could see it in the amber glow of the passing streetlights.

"Honey, it's the truth. Look, let's just forget about that, OK? You always get pissy when you start convincing yourself that you've robbed the cradle—"

"I have—"

" _Steve!_ The crazy space lady turned me into a woman so you would knock me up because we're 'soul mates,' and she says that this is what all soul mates need to complete their 'bond' or whatever-the-fuck it was she said."

"And you believe her?" Steve asked with a glance in his direction.

"If it gets you to shut up about being too fucking old for me, then yeah, I do. And shouldn't you let _me_ decide if you're too for me? I mean, trust me, you're not, but seriously, my decision. And look, we have a lot in common. We like to do a lot of things together—"

"I don't think 'sex' counts, Tony."

Tony picked his hand up from Steve's thigh and backhanded him in the gut. "That's _not_ what I mean, you filthy, dirty, old man. But we have fun together, right? And that's what counts."

"And the sex."

"Seriously? What the hell's with the sex on the brain all of a sudden? Last night wasn't enough for you?"

Steve just shrugged, gaze focused on the road ahead. "I mean, I guess it's a decent start."

Deciding Steve had shifted back into a better mood, he reached out and switched the radio back on. He put it on low so as it was more white noise than anything else, tuning the station back to that '70s one because it came the closest to splitting the difference between them. He settled back into his seat, nestling his head against the headrest again.

"And people think I'm the sex-obsessed one," he murmured and closed his eyes a moment. Huh, it actually felt kind of good to relax his eyes.

"I'm pretty sure there're people out there that think Captain America doesn't even know what sex is."

Tony snorted a laugh, eyes still closed. "Maybe we should—"

"No."

"You don't even know what I was going to—"

"We're not making a sex tape."

"Sweetie, the word is 'another.' We're not making _another_ sex tape."

Steve was silent a moment, and in that moment, Tony found himself lulled by the gentle rumble of the road, Steve's sturdy presence beside him and the soft sounds of 70s rock echoing from the speakers. He reveled in this contented peace until Steve said like the confused old man he sometimes was, "Why would people _want_ to watch themselves— I mean that was— I—"

"Mmm…" he murmured, the words heavier and harder to form than they'd been a minute ago, "it is kind of boring watching it after-the-fact. Lot more fun in the moment."

"Boring? It was— Do people really find that _attractive?_ "

Tony hummed out a response that was supposed to sound a little bit like 'I don't know.' And was it him, or did Steve's voice sound just a little distant?

"Are you falling asleep on me?"

"Nuh-uh."

"You sure?"

"Mmm hmm…"

The next thing he knew, it was pitch black outside, and Steve was pulling the car up some secluded and partially-overgrown driveway.

Yeah, OK, so maybe he had been closer to falling asleep than he'd thought?

He yawned and sat up a bit and took in his surroundings, and he saw Steve checking his mirrors as he drove up the pathway.

"Sorry," Tony said and stretched a little in his seat. "For what?"

"Fell asleep on you. Hope you weren't too bored."

"No, just…did some thinking," he replied as the headlights hit upon a darkened cabin up ahead. "That's all. How 'bout you? You feel any better?"

He thought about it and nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

"Good."

Tony looked at the cabin that had come into view. "Uh… Isn't this how every single slasher film starts?" he asked as Steve pulled the car around to the back of the cabin.

"Those are _movies_ , Tony," Steve said and shifted the car into park.

"Yeah, you're right. It's not like I'm sitting here as a man that's been turned into a woman that's been impregnated by a science project from the '40s."

Steve just shot him a pointed look then popped his door open.

"I'm just saying," Tony said and followed suit. Of course, where Steve was able to exit the car with ease, Tony had to fight it a bit, and he grumbled and struggled before he was finally able to get himself out of the car. He huffed and straightened out his clothes then shut the door and went over to the trunk where Steve was pulling out their bags. "I'm just saying _maybe_ what was once considered outrageous by film standards isn't, you know, that outrageous any longer."

Steve just gave him a bag to carry in.

"You're honestly not the least bit concerned about us being out here, in the woods, in the dark, by ourselves?"

But Steve just closed the trunk, and he leaned down and smacked a kiss against Tony's forehead. "I'll protect you," he said then gathered the rest of the bags up in his arms and nodded his head toward the door.

Tony rolled his eyes but made his way over the slightly overgrown slate path toward what he figured was supposed to be the back door to the place. "Hey, yeah, next question: How are we supposed to get in?"

"Nat gave me an override to use. Hopefully, it works."

Tony stopped at the door, Steve right beside him. "Uh, we just drove god knows how many hours to the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere, and you don't even know if it's going to _work?_ "

The only light being the moon high above, Tony watched as Steve grinned at him and said, "Yeah, some asshole took down the whole system last year. Really screwed a lot of things up."

Steve set the bags down and dug something out of his pocket, and Tony watched as he swiped something through a reader. "Huh. Normally, you'd have that guy's ass in a sling."

"Eh," Steve said as they heard the telltale sounds of a door unlatching or unlocking, "not saying the guy doesn't deserve it. Haven't had the time to do it, though. I'll get around to talking to him at some point. Hear he can be a stubborn son-of-a-bitch."

Tony just rolled his eyes, and Steve opened the door and ushered them in. He found a lamp and switched it on then closed the door up behind them and locked it. Tony squinted his eyes at the assaulting light, and he looked around what appeared to be a kitchen in a rather state-of-the-art cabin that was mocked up to look somewhat rustic.

Steve carried the bags through to the living room, and Tony followed then watched as Steve switched on every light and went through every single room in the house. It was all on one level, and there were what appeared to be only the two entrances along with a couple of reinforced windows. No television that he could see, and he very much doubted there was any Wi-Fi to be had.

"All clear?" he asked when Steve rejoined him in the living room.

"Seems to be," Steve said with a nod then checked his watch. "Look, I know you slept in the car, but I'm about beat. Mind if we turn in for the night?"

Tony snorted a laugh. He went to tease him about being 'old,' but remembering their discussion in the car, he simply said, "Sure, why not? What time is it, anyway?"

"'bout twelve-thirty," Steve said and grabbed the bag that had their pajamas in it.

"Twelve-thirty?" Tony asked and spun around to take in the entire room. "Where the hell _are_ we?"

"Finger Lakes, or thereabouts," Steve replied as he went over to the bedroom. Tony followed.

"Fuck, no wonder it took so damned long," he muttered and yawned. He'd slept for almost four hours in the car, but that didn't mean he wouldn't turn down another four in a nice, comfy bed.

He stepped into the room and frowned at the rather utilitarian barrenness of it. There was a bed, a dresser, a bureau, and a table with a small lamp on the one side of the bed, the size of which appeared to be a full. That meant he and Steve would have little choice _but_ to spoon with each other, which wasn't a _bad_ thing, really. Spooning with Steve was nice and fun and half the time their usual mode of sleeping, but it also left them very little room to stretch out if the occasion called for it, and with Steve being on the taller side, and Tony being ~~short~~ _average_ but, well, _pregnant_ , sometimes it was nice to have that extra bit of room—

Wait, Tony was a woman now, or in a woman's body, and Tony was measured at five-eight (five- _nine_ , but what did the doctor's office know?), which was actually not just _average_ but _above-average_ for a woman which meant—

"I'm not short!"

Steve just looked up from where he had lain the overnight bag on the bed and was unzipping it. "What?" he asked, clearly having not been inside Tony's head for that train of thought.

"I'm not short!" he said and went over to Steve. "I'm five-eight in this body. The average American woman is something like five-four or five-five. I'm _taller_ than that, Steve. I'm _tall_."

Steve just stood up to his full height, and Tony glowered a bit as Steve clearly tried to point out the discrepancy in their heights.

"Yes, honey," Steve said like the bastard was just fucking _humoring_ him, "you're tall."

"OK, fine, tall _ish_ for a woman."

But the humor vanished from Steve's face and was replaced by something that looked a little like understanding. "Does it bother you?"

"Huh?"

"That you're…a little less than average for a man."

Tony folded his arms, nestling them just beneath his breasts. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm average."

Steve laughed a little. "Honey, you're not. You're…" He hesitated and scratched at his forehead. "Actually, you're kind of on the _short_ side—"

Tony gasped. "You take that back!"

"Honey, it's the _truth!_ Look, before the war, I was even shorter than that. I know what it's like. I just… I thought it was just something you liked to complain about. I didn't know it actually bothered you."

"It doesn't bother me."

Steve gave him a pointed look, and Tony huffed and rolled his eyes. "OK, look, it's— I'm used to it, OK? I have lifts—"

"You have _heels_ ," Steve muttered and pulled the clothes out of the bag and set them on the bed.

" _I have lifts_ ," Tony amended pointedly, "and I've sort of gotten used to, over the years, maybe not being as _tall_ as other people. Like Pepper and those _fucking_ heels she wears."

"Sometimes I think she's taller than me in those things," Steve said and zipped the bag back up again and tossed it on the floor.

"But I got used to it," he said and took hold of the pajamas Steve handed to him. "I mean, yeah, sure, maybe I thought about what it would be like to be tall, but," he shrugged, "it's not in the genes. But then the Avengers came along, and _you_ and Goldilocks with your fucking giant blondeness, and fucking hell, even— Even _Barton's_ taller than I am. _Barton!_ "

"So?" Steve asked and began to shuck his clothes, tossing them carelessly to the floor.

"It's…" He shrugged and began to undress, folding his clothes and setting them on a chair set in the corner of the room. "I don't know. It's the principle of the thing, I guess."

Steve nodded and pulled down the covers then said, "I'm gonna go check the house again. Make sure everything's locked up."

Tony nodded his understanding and went about changing into the pajamas Steve had brought for him. He yawned again and sat down on the bed when he was done, and he stretched a little and thought about sitting up and waiting for Steve, but the bed was actually comfier than it had originally looked, and he hadn't exactly gotten four hours of _good_ sleep in the car.

He lay down on his side, grimacing a bit as he tried to get into a comfortable position, and he huffed and sighed a bit and waited for Steve to get back so he could complain to him.

Steve did finally show up a few minutes later, and Tony yawned and went to complain that he couldn't get comfortable, but Steve had another pillow with him — one that he'd evidently packed away and brought from home — and he came up to Tony and nodded at him.

"Lift up your leg," he said, and Tony pulled the blankets back and did so, and Steve tucked the pillow between his legs.

"You remembered," Tony said and didn't mean to sound as amazed as he did.

"Of course," Steve replied and lay the blankets back over Tony. He went around to the other side of the bed and sat down, the mattress dipping with his weight, and he switched the light off and lay down beside him.

"You OK? You comfortable enough, I mean?" he asked.

Tony thought about this a moment. "Eh," he said, "I've been worse."

"OK, goodnight," Steve said and turned over to kiss his cheek then turned back and tried to get comfortable.

Tony lay there on his side and listened to Steve attempt to find some level of comfort, and after a few minutes of huffing and turning, he said, "You know, you can spoon me if you want."

"Are you sure?" Steve asked after a moment.

"We've done it before."

"I know, but—"

"Get the fuck over here and put your arm around me!"

Steve didn't have to be told twice, and after some finagling, they were able to get themselves situated and comfortable, Steve spooned up behind Tony, his one leg sharing real estate with the pillow in the space between Tony's legs. Actually, it was a good thing Steve's leg was there. The pillow alone just wasn't cutting it tonight.

"Goodnight," Steve said, his arm around Tony, his hand splayed over Tony's belly.

"Goodnight," Tony murmured in return, the quiet of their surroundings somehow lulling him into slumber.

~*~

Tony couldn't shake the thought that the child he carried could be used as a weapon.

Normally when he dreamt, he saw himself as he had been for the first forty-three years of his life. As a man. As a man with a flat abdomen and pectorals instead of breasts and nothing that would ever even begin to hint at the fact that he was gestating a child in a womb in his abdomen.

But not this dream. In this dream, he was as he currently found himself, a woman, pregnant, and terrifyingly vulnerable. He lay on a table, his arms bound, his legs bent and spread wide in a set of stirrups, his belly heavy, and some probe stuck inside of him where it had no business being. He was in a lab of some kind. He didn't recognize it, but it was large, gleaming with steel and glass and harsh fluorescent lighting. He had only ever seen pictures of Strucker — never saw the man in person before in his life — but he'd wager that's who the German-accented man with the monocle was supposed to be. He and a handful of assorted others were standing around, talking to each other, looking at a monitor, all nodding their various approvals at one another. And then Strucker turned to him and flashed a toothy-yet-menacing smile and said, " _You're doing so well, Antonia_."

_Antonia! How dare he—_

_The man touched his face, soft and tender as he ran a finger down his cheek, and added, "You're from strong stock. You will breed well. We took enough specimens to breed ourselves an entire army of super soldiers. The others, of course, will breed the foot soldiers. But you, Antonia, you are the Captain's bonded. And that makes you quite valuable. You will breed for us the chosen few that will lead us to new and glorious heights_. _"_

_"What are you talking about? What are you doing to me? Where's Steve?"_

_He tugged at his bindings, and Strucker smiled and said, "The Captain was valuable only for the specimens he was able to provide for us. Once we took all that we felt was necessary, the Captain…had outlived his usefulness_. _"_

_Fear and anguish chilled him to the bone._

_Oh, god, they'd killed him. They'd killed Steve. They'd milked Steve for all the spend they thought he was worth, and then they'd killed him._

_And they were going to use Tony — Antonia — to breed themselves a whole new race of obedient and malevolent super soldiers._

_He tugged at his bindings again to try to get loose, desperate to get out, desperate to save himself, desperate to save this child — this child of Steve's — that was innocent in all of this; that had not asked to be conceived, that was not inherently evil._

_"She's fighting again," one of the others said, and Strucker said, "Well, we'll have to put a stop to that, won't we?"_

_As Tony fought with his bindings, a gag of some kind was shoved into his mouth, and his head was slammed back against the table and strapped there, leaving him unable to do anything but look straight ahead at the white-tiled ceiling, the harsh light of fluorescent lamps in the periphery. The probe that had been inserted into him was removed, and he relaxed for only a second before something warm and slippery was inserted into him — a lubricant of some kind — and then he cried out a gasp as he felt something large and warm and rigid stretch him, fill him, and then begin to vibrate inside of him. He tried to pull away from it, but it was as though his hips were locked into place, and the thing inside of him began to thrust in and out, maneuvering in such a way as to bring him to some sort of climax, to force an orgasm from him._

_"You will learn, Antonia," Strucker said as he ran a delicate hand over the swell of Tony's abdomen, "who controls you, who owns you. The Goddess Esmeralda gave you this body, and now it belongs to us. We can force it to bear children, force it to provide milk for the ones that have already been born, force it to orgasm against your very will."_

_And then, that thing pounding into him, Strucker got in his face and all but hissed out in smug glee, "Only your Captain was able to wrench that sort of pleasure from this body, wasn't he? Your Captain is dead, and now you belong to us. You will be used to breed until the day you are no long able to do so, mother to the highest order of the new Master Race. You will provide nourishment for them, and you will have pleasure forcibly wrenched from you until you understand your position in life. Do you understand?"_

_Tony could do nothing but arch his back and moan through the gag as the probe inside of him hit something pleasurable, and he closed his eyes and felt a stream of tears — of pain, of humiliation — stream down the sides of his face, and Strucker said, "Yes, that's a good girl. Such a good girl, Antonia. You're doing so well for us."_

_He couldn't see, but he could feel a slickened finger begin to rub at the engorged nub of his clit. "So very, very good, Antonia," Strucker said, and Tony knew he was the one that was fingering him, light, soft strokes that were meant to tease and entice. "This is what you are and forever will be. A vessel for us to do our bidding. A womb for us to grow our new miracles. You thought it was something other than that, didn't you? You thought the Goddess Esmeralda did this simply because she felt you were 'soul mates.' She did this for us, Antonia. She did this so that we might create our new master race."_

_Tony shook his head, fighting to pull away from those implements that were violating him. But he still couldn't seem to move his hips. He couldn't seem to do anything but lay there and take what was being done to him, his back fighting to arch in to the forced pleasure that was being wrung from him, light groans rumbling in his throat. He didn't want to. He didn't want this. God, it felt good — it felt good in the worst way imaginable — and he cried out as he felt someone begin to stroke the sensitive flesh of his belly._

_"You like this, don't you? Don't fight it, Antonia. Give into it. Embrace who your owners are."_

_He rubbed the area a few more times, and Tony squeezed his eyes tight, a few more tears making their way down the sides of his face. He could feel that sensation start to build in him, that warm, tingly sensation that only one man had…_

_…ever…_

Like a shot, he was awake.

He opened his eyes and was greeted with the darkness of the room, faint moonlight streaming into the windows.

He sat up a moment, unsure of where he was, and he almost thought for a second that that hadn't been a dream until he realized that no, it was. Of course it was. He was in the bedroom of the former SHIELD safe house, and Steve—

He turned and saw Steve sleeping beside him, tucked onto his side and facing Tony, and Tony went to lay back down and cuddle up against him when he realized he was wet. Like really wet. And aching to have Steve inside of him.

He tried not to think that a dream where he had been, for all intents and purposes, _raped_ had been the thing to do that for him.

But it was a dream. It was a dream. It didn't mean anything. It was a combination of things. He was desperately horny and had been for some time now. And he was terrified that the child that grew within him could be turned into a weapon. His brain had put two-and-two together and—

No, no, he wasn't going to think about that. He wasn't going to think about that horrible violation of his body.

But, god, did he ache, and he could tell he was wet and ready to be taken and halfway to orgasm already. God, this body! The things that…

He bit his lip and looked at Steve's sleeping form. God, he wanted Steve. He wanted Steve inside of him so badly. He looked down at himself and then back at Steve and realized he was going to have to do this himself. He was sure Steve wouldn't mind if he woke him up for sex, but at the same time, he didn't want to wake Steve up _just_ for his cock.

Though it was a nice cock.

Still, he didn't want to wake him up just for that, so he slumped back down into the bed and lay there, and he pushed his pants and his underpants down to his thighs, but he couldn't get his legs spread widely enough to get the right angle that he so desperately needed, and so with an anguished groan, he shucked his pants and underpants and shoved them down to the end of the bed then bent his legs and spread them as wide as he could without disturbing Steve and began to finger himself. He closed his eyes and used Steve's presence beside him to imagine that it was Steve's hand on him, Steve's hand that was stroking him, Steve's fingers that were working him.

God, he was a mess! He was as slick as he'd been the previous night when he and Steve had done their little play-act, and he was certain some of it had already gotten on the bed sheets. He pushed his head back against the pillow and bit his other fist as he tried to keep his moans to himself. He needed a dildo or something. A vibrator. He couldn't get his hand at the right angle to tend to his vagina and his clit at the same time. Goddamn it, why'd he have to be so fucking _horny?_

"What're y' doin'?"

He almost jumped out of his skin at Steve's sleep-strained question, and unwilling to admit to being caught out, he swallowed and pulled his hand away from his mouth and said a shaky, "Nothing, babe. Go back to sleep."

But Steve just propped himself up on his elbow and, in the dark, Tony could see him blink at him, sleepily, like he wasn't quite sure what was going on but knew he couldn't just ignore it and go back to sleep.

"'re you OK?" he asked, the words coming out a little bit sleep-slurred.

"Yeah huh. Fine, babe," he said, frozen with two fingers scissored inside of him. "Go back to sleep."

But Steve, that jerk, just sat up now, and he made to turn back to put the light on, and Tony cried out, "No, don't!"

Steve stopped what he was doing, and he turned back to Tony, and, taking in what little he could see in the dark, he simply said, "You need a hand?"

"I need a dick is more like it."

"Your own or—"

"No, yours. You don't have to, though. If you're tired. I can do it myself."

"Don't be ridiculous," Steve muttered and, soon enough, Tony felt the tantalizing sensation of Steve's hand running down the inside of his thigh like he was trying to gain his bearings and see what Tony was up to. He shivered as Steve slid his hand over to his crotch, his hand covering Tony's. He took a gentle hold of Tony's hand and used it to make Tony thrust into himself with his own fingers a few times, and Tony spread his fingers apart to get the stretch he so desperately needed. "I should just do this," he said in a sleep-heavy growl, like he was still waking up but knew exactly what it was he wanted to do. "Make you come like this."

Tony bit his lip and pushed his head back into the pillow. Fine. Whatever. He didn't care. This totally counted as Steve fucking him.

Steve rocked his hand a few more times then gently pulled Tony's hand away, his fingers sliding out with a disgusting and yet provocative squelch. He took Tony's used fingers in his mouth and sucked them clean, and Tony totally didn't mean for the surprised little moan that slipped out of his mouth at that.

"How do you want it?" Steve asked after he'd finished sucking Tony's fingers, and Tony swallowed and thought back to that dream for only a second before he said, "I want you to make love to me."

"OK, but—"

"But I want you to— I want you to take me, you know? Maybe rough — just a little rough and possessive and—"

"Are you OK?" Steve asked, and there was a tinge of concern in his voice.

Tony thought about playing it casual, but instead, he said, "Honestly? No. I am so fucking horny I don't know what to do with myself, and I had a horrible dream where I was raped by some fucking machine and forced into some life of pregnancy slavery where I was bound and gagged and told that I was good for nothing more than breeding little super soldiers."

Tony didn't have to see Steve's face to know it had gone pale. "I— I didn't—"

"No," he said with a sigh. "It wasn't you. You were dead."

"Oh."

"Strucker and his cohorts got their hands on us. Evidently they milked you for as much super soldier sperm as they thought they were going to get and then killed you. Guess who they were going to use it on."

"I can imagine," Steve said then added, "It was only a dream. You know that, right? Strucker's not getting his hands on you, and he's definitely not using you to…breed a pack of super soldiers for him."

"I know," Tony said and relaxed his legs. "I know, I just— It was real. It felt so _real_. Like, I could feel— When that thing was fucking me, I could feel—" He shook his head. "I don't want that. I don't want to feel that. I want to feel you. I want to know you're the only one that's ever been inside me like that. Not them. Not—"

He shivered and shook his head, still able to feel how tightly his arms had been bound, how harsh the lighting had been, how _pleasurable_ that thing had felt inside of him, and Steve hedged a little and said, "Tony, I don't know if that's such a good—"

" _Steven_ , I am horny as fuck and trying to work my way through a very bad dream. Now, either you make love to me to push it out of my mind, or I'm gonna do it myself!"

Steve was silent a moment, and the next thing he said was, "I notice you said you want me to 'make love' to you."

Tony sighed. "You would pick up on that," he muttered. "I want you to be rough, but I want you to _make love_ to me. I don't… I don't think I could handle it just being 'fucking' tonight."

"OK," Steve said and rubbed a hand over his thigh. "OK. We can do that. Come on. Up on your knees."

Ordinarily, Tony would take that opportunity to tease him, some sort of sultry, " _Hmm…ordering me around now, Captain?_ " But instead, Tony just did as he was told, sitting up on his knees as Steve got up with him and then maneuvered him into position, Tony leaning against the headboard, legs spread, and Steve pressed up behind him. He gasped when Steve stuck his fingers inside of him, stroking him, dragging slickened fingers up to his clit, and Steve, naked faster than Tony had ever seen him, pressed up tight against Tony and all but growled into his ear, "Good

Lord, you're wet. That had better be because of me."

"It is," Tony said with a throaty gasp, Steve's fingers taking a leisurely stroll around the aching nub of his engorged clit. "Oh, god, it is."

"Good. Because this body is mine. No one else gets you like this. No one else gets to see you like this. No one else gets to have you like this. This is something for me and me alone. No one else can have you, and no one else is going to get their hands on you. I promise."

Tony could only hum as Steve continued to work him with his fingers, his other hand supporting the swell of his belly. Steve leaned forward and started to nuzzle at Tony's neck, but he sat back a moment and said, "Shirt, off," and Tony waited for Steve to do it himself, but when nothing happened, he sat back from the headboard and, with shaky hands, grabbed the hem of the shirt to pull it over his head. He tossed it onto the floor, and Steve said, "That's better," then pushed up flush with Tony, Steve's front to Tony's back, and cupped firm hands over Tony's breasts. "My God," he murmured as he nuzzled into Tony's neck, "they just keep on getting fuller, don't they?"

He squeezed and kneaded the breasts then slid firm, possessive hands down Tony's torso, settling them over his belly. He kissed from one side of Tony's neck to the other and growled into his other ear, "I love that this is mine," as he caressed his belly. "I love that I did this to you. I love that when people see you, they know I did that to you."

He grunted out a moan and said a breathy, "Steve. Steve, please. Please get in me." He could feel Steve's cock hard and hot against his ass, and he thought for just a moment that maybe that would be OK, too, if they had some lube. But if his pussy wasn't serviced by a certain super solider sometime soon, he was going to fucking _burst_.

" _Please_ ," he begged. "Steve, please. I need it. I need you."

Steve chuckled, nuzzling against the side of Tony's neck and said, "OK. Sure thing," and positioned Tony for the best angle of access. "Ready?"

" _Yes!_ Just do it before I explode!"

Steve chuckled again and pushed inside him, and Tony groaned out in equal parts pleasure and relief. There was something almost comforting about having Steve inside of him — _not_ that sex with Steve was merely comfortable. Clearly, it was more than that if he could kneel here and fucking _beg_ Steve to put it inside of him already. He honestly couldn't ever remember begging any other partner, well, _ever_ for sex. Not because he needed it so desperately. He'd gotten Pepper that needy and desperate once, but he had to admit that her voice had never sounded as wrecked as he knew his own voice had just a second ago when he'd almost choked on the words.

But there was something — well, god help him, there was something _right_ about having Steve inside of him. And not just in this body, but he'd felt it in his other body, too. Yes, it was hot and sizzling and tantalizing and sexy and all that other good stuff. But it was also _right_ , like their bodies had been made for each other, like every other person he had ever been with had been leading up to this — like they were the people he had to be with, had to learn from, in order to have _this_.

He groaned out a moan as Steve hit a particularly pleasurable spot, Steve's hands on him as they found their rhythm, and Tony leaned back into Steve and reached and arm back to hold Steve by the back of his head, to hold him close, to feel his mouth, his hands, his everything on him.

Because he was Steve's, and Steve was his. They were together. They were one. Nothing and no one was going to take that away from them. No one was going to force him to do anything he didn't want. He was Steve's. This was Steve's. This belonged to Steve, and Steve belonged to him.

They were one. They were one. They were—

He tilted his head back, bearing his neck, as he fell over the precipice, one hand clutching tight to the back of Steve's head while the other held fast to the one hand on his belly. He moaned, downright moaned like the wanton and debauched creature he was, and breathed out Steve's name like a prayer, and he let out a little cry as Steve came inside of him, the warmth flooding him, and against his better wishes—

He laughed.

Well, more giggled, and once Steve was able to get a hold of himself after riding the crest of his own orgasm, he rubbed his hands gently over Tony's belly and said, "What?"

Tony giggled a little again. "No, it's nothing."

"Yeah, I don't know if I buy that. When the fella-slash-gal you've just made love to starts giggling at the end—"

"I was just thinking," he cut in before Steve could get too nervous, "that every time you do that — every time you come inside of me — all I can think is, _Jesus, Steve, I'm already pregnant!_ " He giggled a little more and said, "I don't know why. It's stupid."

"Really?" Steve said, half bemused and half in disbelief.

"Mmm hmm. It's stupid, but that's literally the thing that goes through my mind whenever you do that. I don't know if it's because you seem to have _so much_ of it—"

"I really don't think I have any more…of that…than any other fella."

Tony shrugged and dropped his arm to rest it over Steve's, who still had a gentle hold of his belly. "I don't know. I guess I can't judge, seeing as you're the only guy I've ever been with like this. It's…just what I think when you do that. That's all."

"Well, it's not… _stupid_ ," Steve said with a shrug. "It's…kind of funny, I guess."

"Mmm…I'm not making fun of you, honest. That's all on me. You just deposit this metric ton of come inside of me—"

"It's _not_ a metric ton!"

"Well, it's a lot! And, I mean, that's _literally_ the only reason that stuff exists. It's to make, well, in your case, little super soldiers." He patted his belly, surprised that the little monster inside of him hadn't woken up from what he and Steve had just done. "Exhibit A."

"No," Steve said, brushing his lips against Tony's shoulder.

"No? No, what? Honey, I know sex ed in the dark ages was non-existent, but trust me, that pearly-white shit you squirt out of your dick when your balls tighten up and you feel so good you can't do anything but—"

Steve gave him a gentle squeeze to shut him up. "I know _that_. I just mean…not a little super soldier."

"Huh?"

"First, we don't even know if the serum would affect that."

"I'm going to hazard a guess and say, yeah, it probably does—"

" _Second_ , no, not a little super soldier. I don't… We're not raising him that way. He's going to have free will and choice and he's not going to have to keep looking over his shoulder because someone somewhere might want to take him and use him for their own gain. Maybe he'll take after the way I am now. Maybe he'll take after the way I was then. I don't know. But he's not just a little super soldier. He's a baby. He's our baby, and that's the way we're going to raise him."

Tony hummed again and relaxed further into Steve, only realizing then that Steve was still buried inside of him and was still partially hard.

"Can I assume by that little speech that you're hoping for snips and snails and puppy dog tails?"

Steve caressed his belly some more. "As long as it's healthy, I don't care. A little boy. A little girl. I don't care. I just want him or her to be healthy and happy."

Tony snorted a laugh. "That's what every parent says, and they're full of shit. Deep down, you want one more than the other."

"Yeah? What do you want?"

Tony opened his mouth automatically to say 'girl'—

But then he thought of a little ball of fire with big, dark eyes and long, blonde hair and an outsized attitude for such a small body. He hadn't thought of her in so long — hadn't let himself think of her in so long, a brief snippet of a thought at the doctor's office the other day aside — that little girl that had come into his life for a handful of time and had changed him, for better or for worse. The little girl that had looked at him like the sun rose and set with him, like he was her entire world, like he could do no wrong. Papa. Her _papa_. He could only think that any daughter he might have would be a pale imitation of that bundle of fury, one that could never live up to the memory of a daughter that was never truly _his_ to begin with.

"A boy," he said casually. "You?"

Steve exhaled what sounded like a relieved breath. "A boy."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I… I wouldn't know the first thing about a girl. I have some experience being a boy, so I sort of know what to do there. Boys still shoot marbles and play 'kick the can,' right?"

Tony snorted a laugh. "Sure, honey," he said and reached up to pat Steve's cheek. "Of course they do."

"But I just… I mean, there's nothing _wrong_ with a girl, just… I think a boy would be easier for both of us, don't you?"

Tony saw big, dark eyes lined with feathery lashes asking him for 'shield waffles' and if they could watch that episode of the 'vengers cartoon where Daddy and Papa had to be the bad guys.

"Yeah, definitely. They say boys are easier to raise, anyway, and as awesome as we are at being Avengers, I'm not sure that would automatically translate into being parents."

Steve blew out a breath. "Jesus."

"What?"

"I keep forgetting that's what's at the end of this."

Tony, still leaning back against Steve, turned somewhat to look at him. "You're kidding, right?"

He shook his head. "No, I—"

"Do you think I'm just getting _fat_ or something?"

" _No!_ I just… When this is— I mean when _you_ — I'm gonna be a dad."

"Yeah, and I'm going to be a—"

He stopped short, and Steve snorted out an obnoxious laugh and hugged tight arms around him, pressing his face into Tony's shoulder.

" _What_ is so funny, _Captain?_ "

Steve quieted his laughs and kissed Tony's shoulder. "Nah, you'll be a dad, too. You can't stay like this forever, right?"

"The fact of the matter that I'm even _like this_ to begin with should call that into question."

Steve gave him another squeeze and rubbed his hands over his belly. "I'll stick by you no matter what."

"Yeah? I notice you didn't say you'd _love_ me no matter what."

"You know what I mean."

"Yeah, you'll _stick_ with me—"

"Oh, don't be like that! You know that's not what—"

"No, no, that's fine. I'm hideous. I get it. You'd rather get some from that resting murder face of Barton's—"

"I don't think he goes that way."

"—or maybe you want some sweet, sweet Hulk poon or something like that."

"I'm not…really into that."

"Oh, I see how it is. You want to lift Thor's hammer, don't you?"

Steve snorted out another laugh.

"No, I get it. Prince of Asgard. And he's built. Firm. Pretty eyes. Nice smile. Very charming and courageous. And worthy! Don't forget worthy. You want to know if you're worthy of lifting Thor's _hammer_ , if you get my drift. It's cool. I get it. I don't blame you. Sink your teeth into some of that nice, _thick_ Asgardian man-meat."

Steve was shaking with laughter, his face pressed into Tony's shoulder, arms tight around him and dick, which he still hadn't pulled out, twitching inside of him. He squeezed him again and lifted his head to press a hard, sloppy kiss to Tony's cheek and said, "Goddamn it, I love you so much."

"I notice you didn't _deny_ you'd like to sink your teeth into some nice, thick Asgardian man—"

Steve pinched his side, wrenching a squealed shriek from him, and he reached back and slapped the side of Steve's ass, the crack of flesh against flesh ricocheting around the room, and said, "You filthy, old man," realizing too late that slapping Steve like that was a sure-fire way of getting him rock-hard again.

Steve pressed his face into the back of Tony's neck, and he hummed, his dick hardening by the moment, and said, "Could you go again?"

Much to his surprise, Tony found that maybe he wasn't done for the night after all.

"How 'bout once more with feeling?"


	16. Chapter 16

* * *

Tony awoke to the sounds of clanging, what he took to be pots and pans being banged around in a kitchen.

He frowned, his eyes still closed, and stretched out in the bed. It didn't feel like his — like it was too small or something — and he couldn't usually hear what was going on in the kitchen when he was upstairs in the bedroom.

"God, _fuck!_ " he muttered. "The fuck are those assholes doing now?"

Someday, he was going to take away their access to the penthouse. It would just be him and Steve allowed up here, and they could walk around naked all day every day and have sex on every single surface available. It would be awesome.

He opened his eyes and furrowed his brow at his surroundings. This…didn't look like his bedroom. It didn't look like his bedroom in _any_ place he'd owned or rented in the last five years. It was too…small…and rustic. Barren and staid and kinda ugly, to be honest. Not something he would have designed for himself. Where in the hell was he?

Oh. Right. Cabin. Finger Lakes. Accidentally told some reporter he was pregnant with Captain America's kid.

He sighed and lay on his back, and he pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes and rubbed, moaning and groaning as the last of the night's sleep left him. He didn't really feel like getting up — for as small as the bed was, it was still kind of comfortable — but his stupid bladder had other ideas, and he sighed and stretched out, trying to garner the will and the strength to pull himself out of the bed.

Steve was already up and out of the bed — Tony assumed him to be the one making the noise in the kitchen — so he couldn't use Steve's strong and solid form for leverage. Not that he _really_ needed it, necessarily, but jumping spryly out of the bed on a whim was not as much of an option for him now as it had been in previous months.

So, he scrambled a little, thankful that not even Steve was there to see his pathetic attempt, and finding no other choice, he reached up to use the bedpost as leverage, pulling himself to sit up and grumbling as he did so. He sat and gained his bearings a moment, yawning and looking over a room that looked even _worse_ from this vantage point (granted, it was an old SHIELD safe-house, but did it have to be so fucking _ugly_?) before he pulled himself to his feet, using the bedpost once again as leverage.

Jesus, if he was having this much trouble now, god knew what would happen in the next few months.

He rubbed his belly and went into the adjacent bathroom to do his morning business, and once he finished, he padded out to the kitchen where he found Steve clattering the cookware as he attempted to do…something.

He yawned and rubbed his belly a little more. "What are you doing?"

"Breakfast," Steve said as he found what was presumably a mixing bowl. There was a large scatter of ingredients of some kind on the island countertop ahead of him, and he looked up from where he was reading something on his phone and said, "Sorry. Did I wake you?"

"No, it's fine," Tony said and went over to take the mixing bowl from him. "Seriously, what are you doing here? What is all this for?"

"French toast?" Steve said, hopeful and somehow unsure.

"No," Tony said and shooed him away.

"No?"

"No. You are— Jarvis — the real Jarvis — had an excellent French toast recipe that I think I can still remember."

Steve bristled a bit as Tony pushed him further away. "I can cook breakfast for us."

"You can scramble eggs," Tony said and set the bowl down then tried to remember how Jarvis had made the French toast once upon a time. "And just barely at that— And before you say anything, you got lucky with the steaks last night. Actually, they were a little overdone, but I didn't want to say anything because I'm a big believer in it being the thought that counts."

"Thanks," Steve muttered, clear insult audible in his voice.

Tony turned to him, and he flattened his mouth a little as he reached out and patted Steve's firm chest.

"Honey, I love you. You know I'd go to the ends of the universe for you, but you are a _terrible_ cook. It's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just not something you're any good at."

Steve opened his mouth to protest, but Tony just nudged him a little more.

"Go sit," he said, edging Steve out of the way. "If I need any help boiling all the flavor out of something, I'll let you know."

"I can do more than boil stuff," Steve grumbled but still took a seat at the other side of the island.

"Of course you can," Tony said and cracked an egg into the mixing bowl.

"Are you humoring me?" Steve asked, his tone such that Tony knew he full-well knew Tony was humoring him.

Tony just hummed a little and said, "It's a possibility," as he cracked another egg into the bowl.

Contrary to what most people thought, Tony was not an abysmal cook — one burned omelet for Pepper aside. OK, he really hadn't even taken the time to learn how to do it until he'd had something called 'shield waffles' demanded of him once upon a time, and after realizing that it wasn't the worst experience in the world, he found out he kind of _enjoyed_ cooking. Maybe it reminded him of Jarvis or of being a kid or some idealized happy memory, but he wasn't all that _bad_ at it. When it all boiled down to it, cooking was about creation, and if there was one thing Tony Stark was a master at, it was creating things.

Even, evidently, life with his own body.

So, channeling what he'd seen Jarvis do time and again in his younger days, he mixed up the batter as best he remembered it, dipped the bread, and set it to cook on the flat griddle pan he'd found in a cabinet somewhere. Funny how well-stocked and organized a former SHIELD safe house could be (so _that's_ where the budget went for it; it sure as hell wasn't for furnishings and décor). Steve was still a little put-out as the first two slices cooked on the pan, but by the time Tony took the finished product off and slid it over to Steve to drown in maple syrup, he was much better about things, happily taking the toast and drenching it in enough syrup to make Mrs. Butterworth blush.

"So, what's on our agenda today?" he asked as he dipped another slice of bread in the mixture.

Steve shrugged and cut into his toast. "Dunno. More sex?" he said, his tone lilting upward into a hopeful question on the last syllable.

Tony snorted a laugh and dropped the battered bread onto the griddle pan. "I'll see if I'm feeling up to it later."

"How'd you sleep after we, ah…?"

"Very well, Captain," he said and set another slice on the griddle.

Steve sighed. "Tony, what did I tell you about conflating my title with—"

"I know! I know! You don't want to get hard in the field."

"It's not—"

"It is, babe. That's entirely the reason. You don't want to get a stiffy in front of a battalion of Hydra agents or an alien horde if I happen to refer to you as 'Captain' beforehand. Is it just me, or is it if _anyone_ calls you 'Captain.' Because if it's just _me_ , then I will totally call you 'babe' or 'Steve' or 'hey, you!' on the field and 'Captain' in the bedroom."

Steve just stared at him and shoved a bite of the toast into his mouth.

"OK, we'll talk about it later," he decided at Steve's silence on the matter. "Hey, question. Where'd all this food come from?"

"I bought it."

"When?"

He cut into his toast and took another bite. "This morning while you were still passed out. Little store a couple miles down the road. Don't worry. I don't think they recognized me at all. I don't think they cared."

Tony flipped the bread over to cook the other side. "What made you decide on French toast? Wouldn't cereal have been easier?"

"I was _trying_ to do something nice for you," he grumbled and stuffed the last bite of toast into his mouth.

"Hmm… Yes, that's very sweet, dear, and I'm tickled pink by the thought, but, as we've already discussed, you are a _terrible_ cook."

"Really know how to stoke a man's ego," he muttered and got up to dig some glasses out of the cabinet.

"Babe, I'm not trying to be a dick. Or, actually, maybe in my case a _bitch_."

He tried to determine which was technically a better fit, and when he ended up going in circles, he shook his head and continued his thought.

"Anyway, I'm not intentionally trying to hurt you. I'm just saying that — though I love you — your culinary skills, well, _suck_."

Steve poured out a glass of orange juice for Tony and then began to drink the rest straight from the carton. Tony watched him a moment then said, "Is this because I said you're a sucky cook?"

He pulled the carton away from his mouth. "Thirsty," he said and went back to drinking.

"Full of shit," Tony said in the same matter-of-fact tone Steve had used and pulled the slices of cooked toast off the griddle. Steve snatched the plate away from him before he even had a chance to set it down, and Tony watched as he went back over to the chair he'd been sitting in and settled back in with another plate of French toast and half a container of orange juice. A few thumps hit against the inside of his abdomen, and he looked down and said, "Oh, great. What do you want?"

Steve was up and alert. "Is it moving?" he asked, getting out of the chair before he'd even asked the question.

"Yeah," he said only to have a super soldier hand pressed against his stomach for his troubles. "Really?" he asked, eyebrow raised.

Steve just stood there, hand on his belly, and smiled. "Yeah," he said as the little creature thumped against him a few more times, and Tony would be lying if he said there wasn't something equal parts comforting and pleasurable about the way Steve's firm hand sat against his abdomen, both possessive and protective. He moved his hand so it sat atop Steve's, and they stood there, together, hands over each other until the movement settled again.

"God, you're amazing," Steve murmured and pressed a soft kiss to his lips.

He pulled away and went back to his plate of French toast, and Tony smiled a little and decided to accept the compliment for what was probably the first time since Steve had started this whole insistence on him being 'amazing' for doing something that, really, had been going on since the dawn of time.

Then again, it might have been something that had been going on forever, but it wasn't anything Tony ever thought he'd undergo himself — didn't even think it was _possible_ for him to undergo it — and so maybe there was something a little 'amazing' about that?

 _Yeah_ , he told himself, something warm inside him thrumming at the thought. _I am_.

Tony went through three-quarters of a loaf of bread by the time everything was said and done. He got two slices out of it. Steve, very gladly, ate the rest and then conveniently disappeared right around the time Tony was getting ready to clean up the mess of breakfast dishes. He stood there, staring at Steve's departing form, dishes in-hand, and he rolled his eyes and turned to the dishwasher, grumbling about how Steve would be living in his own filth if it wasn't for him.

Afterward, with no TV and no Wi-Fi, there wasn't really a whole hell of a lot to do, and Tony honestly wasn't in the mood for sex at the moment. Maybe later, but not right then, which was a little odd considering how horny he'd been lately, but maybe he was still good from what they'd done last night? So, Steve, ever the health-conscious boy scout, suggested they take a walk.

"A walk?"

"Yeah."

Tony just blinked then nodded his head toward the window. "Out there?"

"Yeah.

"Aren't we supposed to be in hiding?"

But Steve just laced up his sneakers. He'd already changed into a tight t-shirt and a pair of pants he wore for running. "We're supposed to be getting out of town for a couple days."

"OK," Tony said, watching and not making any move to match Steve and change into something more appropriate for going outside, "and that usually means lay low and keep your head down."

"Just a walk," Steve said. He stood up and began to stretch some. "It's actually nice and peaceful out there."

"Yeah. Nice and peaceful and _empty_. There are _woods_ out there, Steve. There is no one around for miles. What if someone sneaks up on us? What if there's someone hiding out there that gets his kicks hunting down poor, defenseless couples like us? Hacks us to bits and then takes our carcasses back to his shady-ass cabin and makes stew out of our flesh and gelatin out of our bones?"

Steve sighed a little as he stretched out the hamstrings in his right leg. He dropped his leg from where he'd had it propped up onto the chair, and he took hold of Tony's hands and brought them up to his lips, kissing the back of each hand one at a time. "I give you my solemn oath that nothing will happen to either one of us."

"Can I get that signed and notarized?"

Steve just laughed and tugged on his hands. "Come on! Exercise is good, especially for someone in your condition."

Tony shot a pointed look at him, and Steve just gave a goofy and hopeful smile in return.

"Well?" he said, his tone light and innocent. "It is." When Tony still didn't budge, he sighed, and he squeezed Tony's hands and said, "All right. Fine. When we get back, I'll give you a full-body massage, and maybe we can see if there's someplace around here to get ice cream. How's that sound?"

Tony got dressed for a walk.

~*~

"There is _literally_ no one around for miles."

Steve sighed and hung his head a little. "You already said that."

"I just want to stress that," Tony said as they walked, hand-in-hand, along the side of the country road in one of the bumfuckiest parts of New York State. If he was being charitable and objective, he would say it was a gorgeous spring Saturday with blue skies and fluffy white clouds and the sun shining brightly above them. The trees and overgrowth that lined the roadway were budding and blossoming, shocks of bright green overtaking the last vestiges of winter brown. Birds chirped in the near distance. It was as quiet and peaceful and contenting as could possibly be, and maybe under better circumstances, he could enjoy it a little more.

He didn't know how long they'd been walking for, and truth be told, he didn't _hate_ walking. It was actually kind of nice walking with Steve, but it was the principle of the thing. There was just something unsettling about the fact that they were alone and so far removed from civilization that, were anything to happen, no one would hear their screams, and neither one of them had anything on them to defend themselves with outside of their wits and whatever hand-to-hand training they had. Actually, Steve had pretty good hand-to-hand training, and Tony wasn't so bad if he said so himself—

Well, he wasn't so bad in his other body. He'd never taken this one out for a test drive in that regard, and he wasn't sure Steve would exactly be crazy about him doing it now. Something about chances for 'miscarriage' or 'stillbirth' or whatever. Steve would figure out _some_ argument against it that Tony would end up grudgingly agreeing with.

"There is no one around for miles," he continued. "Have you seen _one_ car go by in the amount of time we've been on this road? No. I'm just saying, if someone were to come up to us and kill us right now, our bodies wouldn't be found for weeks — if ever."

"Tony—"

"I'm serious, Steve. There is _no one_ around for miles. No one to hear us scream. No one to help us. No one to call for help. If anything happened to us—"

" _Nothing_ is going to happen to us."

"Yeah? How do you know that?"

Steve just shot a lopsided grin at him. "'Cause I'm Captain America." Tony gave him a slight shove.

"You're a troll," he muttered.

"Yeah?" He tugged him a little closer. "Well, you're stuck with me, so you'd better learn to live with it. Just like you'd better learn to live with my 'sucky' cooking and my 'lazy ass' that can't be bothered to run a dishwasher."

"Run it? You can't be bothered to _put the dishes in it!_ You literally ran out of the room this morning right as it came time to start cleaning up the mess that _you_ started."

"I didn't _run_ out of the room—"

"Yeah? Well, you got out of there in record time is what I'm saying, scatters of dirty dishes in your wake."

" _Scatters of dirty dishes_ ," Steve muttered like Tony was exaggerating the point. "Yeah, well, that's what I have you for."

Tony just shot a look at him. "Because I'm, technically, a woman?"

"What? No—"

"It's not the 1950s anymore, babe."

"I know that. It's not because, at the moment, you're a woman—"

"Because the woman is supposed to clean up after the man, right?"

"Would you let me finish? It's because, of the two of us, you're the neater one."

Tony thought about that for a moment. "'Neat' as in old-man for 'cool' or 'neat' as in 'tidy'?"

"Tidy," Steve replied then waited a beat and added, "In the old-man version, I'm definitely the neater of the two of us."

Tony burst out laughing, putting a hand to his belly as he did so, and Steve waited a moment before he asked a somewhat offended, "What?"

"You," he said through his laughs, "thinking you're cooler than me."

"I am!"

"Sure, babe," he said and patted Steve's very firm abdomen. "You keep telling yourself that."

He rested his hand on Steve's abdomen and then began to rub it, feeling the hard lines and the tight, firm muscle beneath, and he began to imagine what he knew was underneath the very tight shirt Steve was wearing, and then—

"Yeah, time to go back."

"What? Why?" Steve stopped and turned to him, concern etched over his face. "Are you OK? Are you feeling sick? Do you need—"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Oh, my god, Steve! No! I'm just taking you up on that offer for sex!"

Steve needed only a second to process that before he was grasping a firm hold of Tony's hand and practically dragging him back up the road.

"Well, there's no time to lose!" he said and walked at such a brisk pace that Tony struggled to keep up.

"What? _Ack!_ Steve, hold on!" he said through laughter, and Steve stopped and waited for Tony to get a hold of himself.

"Should I carry you?" he asked, sounding _ridiculously_ earnest about it. "Do you want me to carry you?"

"What? No! I don't want you to carry me! I just want you to slow your ass down! Jesus fuck, Steve, we're not that far away from the cabin! I'm not going to change my mind if we don't get there in the next five minutes."

"Yeah, well, you know, the sun's getting pretty low and I know you don't want to be out past dusk—"

"Low? It's not even noon!"

"Yeah, well," Steve said with a shrug, fidgety and nervous like Tony was wasting precious time they didn't have. Judging by the suddenly noticeable bulge in Steve's pants, maybe they didn't.

Tony motioned to a clearing just off the road. "If you'd really rather not wait, there's always that. _Or_ , if you'd rather not get us covered in ticks and fleas and whatever the fuck else lays in wait in grass, there's always the road. Haven't seen a car yet."

"We're not having sex in the middle of the road, Tony."

"Yeah," he said as he thought about it. "You're right. Talk about brush burn." And then he thought about the rather delicate area that could chance getting hurt and said, "Bush burn?"

Steve choked out a cough. Oh, good, he'd taken that exactly as he'd intended it, the pervert.

Steve sputtered out a few incomprehensible words then said, "You wouldn't be _rubbing_ yourself on the road, would you?"

Tony made a 'hmm' sound and said, "Depends. Would it turn you on?"

"No! Not if you're going to hurt yourself." And then he rubbed the back of his neck and said, "I mean, maybe I'd want to watch you… _you know_."

He shook his head, and Steve made a face like he was embarrassed to say the words. "No, I don't, babe. What would you like to watch me do?"

"Touch yourself?" Steve said, sounding unsure that he was even allowed to say the words.

He had a feeling he knew what Steve was asking him, but he wanted to be absolutely certain he understood completely what Steve was getting at.

OK, maybe he just wanted to see how red and squeamish Steve could turn before he finally got the words out.

"You mean fondle myself — like fondle my breasts — or—"

"No," he said with a slight shake of the head, hedging a little bit and rubbing at the back of his neck some more. "I mean get yourself off."

Tony went in for the kill.

"You mean you want to watch me masturbate?"

Steve's face went adorably red at that, and Tony grinned at him and all but purred as he went up on his toes and murmured against Steve's jaw, "I think that could be arranged."

Steve closed his eyes and swallowed, and Tony grinned again at the power he held in his hands. Steve could drive him crazy with lust no question, but Tony had a few tricks up his sleeve when it came to Steve. He'd only gotten himself off in this body a couple of times so far, but he was pretty sure he knew all the tricks of the trade — or at least the ones that were certain to satiate Steve's desire to watch him pleasure himself. Steve really wasn't all that picky when it came to that sort of stuff. He was easy to please in that regard. So long as he was assured that Tony was happy, he was happy.

"I don't know why you're so funny about saying it," he said after he'd pulled back. "You've watched me jerk myself off before."

"Yeah, but that's different," Steve said and took his hand again to lead him back to the cabin.

"How?"

"You were a fella then."

Tony turned to him but continued walking. "You…aren't of the naïve belief that women don't masturbate, are you?"

"No, I— I know they do," he said, though he didn't sound like he believe what he was saying.

"Do you? Or are you just saying that because you think you're supposed to say it?"

"Fellas do it. Why shouldn't dames— broads— _women?_ "

Tony hummed a bit and said, "Fair point.

"But I mean you haven't yet in that body. Have you?"

Oh, poor, naïve man.

"If that's what you want to hear," he said, "then that's what I totally will tell you."

Steve seemed to understand what hadn't been said. "Really?"

He shrugged. "Couple of times."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Was it— Did you—"

"Did you want _details?_ "

He watched as Steve swallowed but said nothing. Oh, he _did,_ the pervert.

"Look," he said and swung Steve's arm a little bit to pull him out of his head, "when we get back to the cabin, I'll spread my legs and finger myself and let you watch—"

"God, Tony, don't say—"

He stopped abruptly and stole a glance at the opposite side of the road, at the overgrowth of brush and trees cast in shadows. Tony followed his look and said, "What?"

"Hmm? Nothing." He tugged on Tony's hand a little to get them to walk a little faster. "Come on. I'm not sure how much longer I can last out here."

Tony shot a glance at the other side of the road. "Wait," he said and tried to look beyond the leaves and the flecks of sunlight to see if there was anything that wasn't supposed to be there, "did you hear something?"

"What? No. Was checking to see if there was a cabin or something closer that we could use."

"Yeah, bullshit. Did you see something?"

"No." He sped up his walking just a little bit, and Tony fumbled as he followed.

"Steven, I have a small watermelon currently strapped to my gut. Please keep that in mind."

Steve just took another not-so-surreptitious glance at the other side of the road. "Do you want me to carry you?" he asked without looking at him. "I'll carry you."

"What? No, Steve, what are you looking at? What's over there?"

"Nothing."

"No, bullshit, something's over there. Something's got you spooked. Something—" He gasped and turned to look as well, even though Steve kept dragging him back up the road toward the cabin, dirt and gravel crunching beneath their sneakers. "Fuck! Fuck, I knew it! What'd I tell you?"

"It's nothing," Steve said, trying to sound calm but he was having a hell of a time keeping the unease out of his voice.

"The hell it's nothing. Something's over there. And not a single goddamned car on this godforsaken road in the last _hour!_ "

"We haven't been out here an hour."

"Principle of the thing, Steven. We're out here all alone, and I don't care if you are Captain America. Blood-thirsty murders don't care, either. They only care that we're a cute, young couple out here by our lonesome and will make great Innocent-Victim Stew."

"No one's going to murder us, Tony," he said, but he was making no effort to slow his walk.

"Then why are you walking so fast, huh?"

Steve didn't answer him, and Tony about jumped out of his skin when he heard the unmistakable sound of a tree branch snapping beneath a foot on the other side of the road. He stopped to turn, but Steve said, " _Don't!_ " and pulled him along.

"You saw something, didn't you? For all you know it's a fuzzy woodland creature over there."

Steve was silent for a beat before he said, "Maybe."

"I knew it! When? How long ago?"

"Couple minutes. _Fuck_ ," he snapped under his breath. "Whoever it is is following us."

Tony instinctively tucked closer to Steve. Ordinarily, he'd be bound and determined to fight. But ordinarily, he was not several months pregnant with a super soldier's baby.

And again, he also had not a damned thing on him to defend himself with. You know, maybe it was time to look into something like portable gauntlets or something. And maybe he could have Natasha show him some maneuvers befitting his current form, something to aid him if someone or some _thing_ — like a certain organization — tried to get their mitts on him and _do_ things to him.

He _was_ technically pregnant with Captain America's baby, and who wouldn't want to get their hands on that?

He shivered.

"Hydra?" he asked, suddenly reminded of that god awful dream he'd had last night.

"Or just a drifter," Steve said just as the being emerged from the woods. Steve kept walking, but Tony stopped to look at what turned out to be a man — one with long hair and tattered clothes and the scruff of what was probably a two-week-old beard. He stood stock-still on the other side of the road as he stared at them, glowering and yet somehow, strangely, looking a little unsure, a little lost. On the surface, he looked like a threat — like the proverbial drifter with a hook for a hand — the type it was clearly smarter to keep distance from. But there was something about the look — something about the confusion and the pain — that made Tony realize what this man desperately needed was help.

Tony stood there, meeting the gaze of the lost soul that _clearly_ had been keeping tabs on them, and he lost his balance as the distance between him and Steve extended beyond what his arm could reach, stumbling a bit before he gained his bearings and was able to counterbalance Steve's weight to keep them from going any further.

"Uh, Steve?"

"Tony, let's _go!_ " Steve said but then stopped to look at what Tony was pointing to.

And then, he breathed out the one word that Tony, deep down, could have gone the rest of his life without hearing.

" _Bucky_."

There was the span of a roadway separating them, but standing there on the other side of it, looking unwashed, unkempt, and maybe even a little unnerved was the elusive James Buchanan Barnes. Steve stood motionless as he stared at his long, lost friend, almost like he was afraid that if he moved a muscle, it might spoil the mirage.

But Barnes, to his credit, didn't run — just stood there and stared right back, his gaze now focused on Steve instead of Tony. Perhaps feeling emboldened, Steve took one cautious step toward his old friend. When Barnes still didn't turn to run, Steve took another step, and Barnes began to return the favor, taking cautious steps towards Steve as well, his gaze darting around like a nervous and easily-spooked animal on the lookout for any kind of threat.

Steve had lessened his hold on Tony's hand, and by the time Steve was stepping onto the roadway, he'd completely lost his grip of Tony's hand. Tony just stood and watched as his husband took several more steps toward the friend that was taking several slow, cautious steps toward him, and like something out of some goddamned movie or fucking romantic comedy, they met square in the middle of the road, each standing on either side of the double yellow line.

He watched as they stood there considering each other for a moment — not like they were sizing each other up but more that they were trying to assure themselves this was real and this was really happening — before Steve seemingly felt brazen enough to reach out and pull Barnes into an embrace. Barnes stood frozen for only a second before he was reaching up with tentative arms to return the embrace in kind, though Tony saw the haunted look on Barnes's face as he rested his chin on Steve's shoulder and hugged him for the first time in damned near seventy years.

Tony continued to stand awkwardly on the side of the road, and he folded his arms and kicked at the gravel and dug the toe of his sneaker into the dirt as he waited for Steve to…whatever. Take Barnes's hand and run off into the sunset together. Probably something like that, right? That's how these reunions always ended, didn't they? Yeah, sure, he was happy for Steve, he guessed.

Maybe, after all this time, he was truly on the path to getting his best pal back.

But why did he have this weird gut feeling like Steve was going to have to make a choice between them? And why, dear god, did a little voice in the back of his head assure him that if it came down to that, Tony might not be the one Steve would choose?

Steve and Barnes stood hugging for longer than Tony had anticipated, and he was just about to turn and make his way back to the cabin alone when he saw Steve dragging Barnes back to their side of the road, something that looked like wetness staining his face.

"Buck, I want you—" he was saying as the met up with Tony. "Buck, I want— This is Tony," he said and pulled Barnes so that he and Tony were standing face-to-face. Tony stood as tall as he could and squared his shoulders a bit, and Barnes stared down at him and looked him over with those haunted and somewhat glassy eyes of his and croaked out, "Are you sure?"

"What?" Steve asked, not seeming to understand Barnes's comment.

But Barnes turned to him and gave him that look of muddled and distant confusion as he said, "I thought you had a fella now."

"I do," Steve said, sounding a little proud, as he put his hands on Tony's shoulders and gave them a gentle squeeze.

But Barnes just eyed Tony over in more confusion and said, "That's not a fella."

"Well, not exactly. It— It's a little complicated," Steve said and slid his arms down and around Tony's waist, resting firm, possessive hands on Tony's belly and nuzzling into his neck. If he didn't know any better, he'd say Steve was showing off his best fella to his oldest pal.

Barnes didn't seem to know how to reconcile what he was seeing with what Steve was telling him, and he frowned and looked Tony over one more time and said, "Have fellas changed that much since…"

"It's a long story," Tony said and wondered where in the fuck they were going from there. They had been on their way back to the cabin so that Steve could watch Tony masturbate, but he had a strong feeling that was off the table now. Steve was standing right behind him, pressed up tight against him, and he could tell Steve's previous interest in their future activities had dwindled down to nothing.

"Oh," Barnes said, seemingly for lack of anything else to say, and Tony stood there as Steve hummed and nuzzled into his neck a little more then stood up and said to Barnes, "Come back to cabin with us — just for a little while. You don't have to stay, if you don't want."

Barnes hedged, and Tony was certain he was about to turn tail and run again until he said, "A little while?"

"However long you feel comfortable for."

Tony would have said something about Steve making the decision to allow a former Hydra agent — the fucking _Winter Soldier_ of all people — into what was supposed to be their safe house during their weekend getaway, but he knew it would fall on deaf ears. That, or Steve would give him that sad-eyed look that Tony fell for every time, and Tony would give in, anyway.

In any event, Barnes would be coming back to the cabin with them no matter what.

Barnes just nodded at Steve's suggestion, and Steve tightened his arms around Tony, giddy, like a child hugging a stuffed animal that had just been told Santa was coming that very night.

"There's only the one bedroom," Steve explained and pulled away from Tony to put his arm around Barnes's shoulders, "but you could probably stay on the couch— If you wanted to stay, I mean. You don't have to stay. You don't have to do anything you don't want."

He started to lead Barnes back toward the cabin, arm around his best pal's shoulders, talking to him like the last seventy years had never happened.

Tony stood there on the side of the road and watched as the distance between them grew, and he rubbed his belly and wondered if the little voice that warned him that Steve might very well have to make a choice between them soon was just the product of decades' worth of insecurity cropping up at an inopportune time.

Or something more.

~*~

Barnes was quiet, which was fine because Steve more than made up for what Barnes wasn't saying.

Steve talked constantly that entire afternoon, almost like he was afraid if he allowed there to be any moment of silence that Barnes would take that as his cue and would pack up and leave, voluntarily walking away from Steve one more time.

So, Steve talked. About everything. About what had happened after Barnes had fallen from the train; about what had happened when he'd put the plane down into the snow; about what had happened about when he'd woken up nearly seventy years in the future.

He talked about the Avengers, about the advances in technology and society and medicine. He talked about the Chitauri and the downfall of SHIELD and that incident down in the Financial District back in the fall. He talked about what it was like to fight alongside an alien that had been taken for being a Norse god. He talked about what it was like to have to talk down a giant, green rage-monster or watch his back around a couple of master spies. He even talked about working through some of his survivor's guilt — though not that he called it by those words — with his buddy Wilson.

He talked about damned near everything but Tony.

Not that he was that egotistical that he thought Steve should spend his time talking about nothing but the man or woman or whatever the fuck he was that Steve claimed was the love of his life. But it might have been nice to have _some_ acknowledgement of his existence beyond whatever the hell that bullshit was on the side of the road.

After two hours of Steve going on and on about everything that supposedly ranked lower on the scale of importance to him than Tony, Tony struggled to his feet from where he sat beside Steve on the couch and found his way back to the bathroom. It had been a while since he'd showered, and he thought one might do him well, so he grabbed some clothes and closed the door and turned the shower on.

The pipes creaked a little from disuse, and he waited for the disgusting squelch of brown water to make its way through the pipes before it began to run clear, and he stripped down as he waited for the water to warm up. He tried to get a good look at himself in the mirror — not to check himself out but to see if anything noticeable had changed as of late — but the mirror was one of those small cabinet jobs kind of high up on the wall, and so he could really only get the bust of himself and nothing below that.

He looked down at his naked form, at the small belly that bulged out in front of him, at breasts that just wouldn't seem to stop growing. He felt the baby move within him, and he reached down and tried to comfort himself with the touch again, but the shitty bathroom light reflected off the ring on his finger, drawing his attention to that.

He stared at the ring, moving his hand to get the diamonds and sapphires to catch the light, and wondered why it bothered him so much that Steve was so seemingly disinterested in him all of a sudden. Look, he couldn't entirely blame the guy. Barnes had been his best friend. After his mother had died, Barnes and his family had been all Steve had had until he'd joined the army — until he'd set his sights on Peggy Carter. He couldn't blame the guy for wanting to get some of that back, some of that life that had been taken away from him.

But did he have to so blatantly ignore the life that was sitting right next to him in order to do that?

He snuffled some and wiped away the tears that had begun to collect — fucking hormones — and he stepped into the warm shower and let the water run over his body. He closed his eyes and willed himself to forget about the outside world for a moment and focus on nothing but the way the water felt cascading down his body, the warmth, the comfort, the security it provided him.

He stuck his head under the shower head and felt the water beat against his scalp, wetting and weighing down his hair as it trickled over and down him, the slight tingle he felt as the water dripped from his hair onto his shoulders and back. He watched the water as it circled the drain and then disappeared, a slight whirlpool effect that he found equal parts mesmerizing and contenting. He remembered for only a brief moment that he was supposed to have been pleasuring himself at some point that afternoon — pleasuring himself for Steve's pleasure — but he couldn't even bring himself to touch himself in the privacy of the bathroom and for his own sake. It was hard to think about pleasure when his husband, the father of the little creature that grew inside of him, and the man that some cosmic goddess had assured him was his 'soul mate,' was probably now in the middle of recalling happier times with the last tangible vestige of his former life. Of course he was recalling happier times. Why wouldn't he? What was there to be happy about here? This was the life he'd gotten stuck with, wasn't it? Not the life he'd wanted.

There was wetness on his face, but he wasn't sure if it was from the water or if it was from the second batch of tears he quietly let fall as he grabbed some shampoo and soaped his hair up. Yeah, it was stupid to cry about this. There were thousands of worse things to get upset about, and it wasn't like Steve was going to leave him for Barnes — or maybe not in that way he wasn't.

Because while Steve might not have been in love with Barnes like that, and while Barnes evidently didn't go for men like that, Barnes was still part of that life that had been forcibly ripped from him all those years ago, and Tony couldn't fathom in any way how this life that Steve led now could compare to that other life, his real life, the one he truly belonged to.

Yeah, sure, it was easier for someone like Steve nowadays. He didn't have to worry about stealing a quick one with some man in a back alley before he got caught by the cops — or worse — but Steve had also admitted that he had wanted to get married and he'd wanted a family. Maybe Steve was more turned on by the idea of sucking brain or having some fella suck brain for him, but Steve was also not above lying to himself. Steve would gladly try to convince himself 'til his dying day that he didn't want some man's cock in his mouth or he didn't want to shove his cock into some other guy's ass. Steve was that self-sacrificing type that would tell himself that he was perfectly happy with his little wife and his two-point-five kids and the dog and the little house with the white picket fence and—

He stopped thinking about that as he stuck his head under the showerhead again to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. God, how had he fucked this up so badly? How could he have let this get so far away from him? Captain America should have stayed nothing more than a fantasy to him.

One that had come back to life and shoved his ridiculous hotness into Tony's face every time he turned around, but still, a fantasy and nothing more. What had made him think that he was even good enough for someone like Steve? Someone that deserved so much more than what life had given him — than what Tony could give him.

Fuck, he hated himself sometimes.

He finished in the shower about ten minutes later, and he dressed and pulled his hair up into a ponytail, and rather than go back out into the living room and listen to Steve and Barnes — OK, probably just Steve — recall happier times before the war, he curled back into the bed and lay down on his side, tucking the pillow between his legs as the baby suddenly decided it was time for his afternoon workout.

"Really? Now?" he muttered and looked down at his belly. "Couldn't have done it when I was in the shower?"

Still, there was something almost comforting about the movement, something that told him he wasn't completely alone, and he reached down and rubbed a gentle hand over his abdomen, pausing to poke back at a jab of movement against his right side.

"Yeah? Let's see how much you like that. Someone poking you day and night."

Jesus. Was this really what he'd been reduced to? Having a one-sided conversation with a half-formed parasite growing inside of him?

He patted his abdomen then nestled into the blankets and tried to relax. He closed his eyes and took several deep, long breaths as he tried to will himself into something like a slumber. Falling asleep was not exactly difficult for him nowadays, and in no time flat, he was out, and he only knew that because the next thing he knew, the light and the shadow had shifted, and he knew late afternoon was upon them.

He fought to get up and then sighed a little when he saw nothing had been disturbed. Steve probably hadn't even come to check on him, and he grumbled and struggled to his feet and rubbed his belly some more. His stomach growled, and realizing he hadn't eaten since breakfast, he quietly made his way out of the bedroom so not as to disturb Steve and Barnes too much in their trip down memory lane.

Which was pointless because they weren't even in the fucking _cabin_.

Tony sighed heavily when he saw they weren't in the living room where he'd last left them, and calling out Steve's name got him nothing but silence in return.

_Steve would have to make a choice. He would always come second to Barnes._

The previous anger with himself coming back to the forefront of his mind, he stormed into the kitchen and then began to bang pots and pans and various other apparatus around as he looked for something to make himself. Fuck Steve. If he was hungry, he could burn or boil something himself.

He ended up scrambling himself some eggs with a couple slices of toast on the side, and he pulled open the fridge and looked for anything to wash it down with. He saw the nearly-empty carton of orange juice from this morning, and he thought long and hard about just pouring the damned thing down the drain, but he left it to fester and instead pulled out what looked like a small bottle of apple juice. Not the tiny bottles that had sat in his fridge for the longest time because there was a small part of him that was convinced that someone would be back to drink them, and she would be _very_ irate if they weren't there waiting for her, but one that would fit inside a vending machine.

He glanced down at his abdomen and wondered — if just for a moment… No, not possible at all. Alternate universe. Not even worth thinking about.

He wasn't in the mood for apple juice, but he pulled it out and shook it up and downed half of it in one go anyway. He sat at a table on the other side of the room and shoveled the eggs into his mouth, the quiet weighing on his shoulders like something dark and oppressive, and he looked out the window and spotted the car still parked there. For only a brief moment, he thought Barnes had lulled Steve into a false sense of security and had instead led the stupid bastard to his death, but he was pretty sure if Barnes had intended to kill Steve, he would have come back and killed Tony, too.

Whatever. Not like it mattered. Steve was going to leave him anyway — was going to find the courage to finally go out and 'find himself' after all these years now that he'd gotten Barnes back again. Find the courage to lead the live he wanted rather than the life he'd been forced into.

Steve and Barnes didn't return until dusk, and wherever they'd gone and whatever they'd done, it had seemed to put Barnes in a better mood. He was at least smiling with Steve when they crossed back over the threshold that evening, and Tony, who had busied himself playing on his phone the entire time Steve had been gone, just looked up and gave them a cursory nod of acknowledgement.

Steve, however, didn't seem to notice anything wrong, and he went over and bent down where Tony sat on the couch and kissed Tony's forehead. "Hey there, sleepyhead," he said. "Feeling better?"

"Peachy."

"Did you eat anything? We found a pizza place a few miles away. Not very good, but it's in the kitchen if you're interested."

"Thanks," he said and concentrated on his phone, "but I ate. You guys can have it."

"Suit yourself," Steve said with a shrug and went back toward the kitchen. "It's OK, Buck. Tony's not hungry. He said you can finish it."

Tony rolled his eyes, and he thought about texting Natasha or Bruce to see what was going on back in New York, but he knew texting them at seven o'clock on a Saturday night was just asking for twenty questions about what was wrong and what was going on.

So he opted not to do anything and instead sat and continued to play on his phone doing bullshit work as Steve and Barnes yukked it up in the kitchen (OK, Steve did most of the yukking), evidently reliving something from whatever joke of a public school they'd gone to. Well, Steve had been dirt poor growing up. Not like his mother could have afforded to send him to some elite prep school like Tony's parents had.

He wondered, only briefly, if he would have been somewhat better adjusted if they'd just let him go to public school or, at the very least, allowed him to stay in the class with his own age group. Being a seventeen-year-old graduate of MIT looked great on paper, but as for making lifelong friends, it _sucked_. For making friends period, it sucked, and he couldn't even imagine how much more fucked up he would have been had he not been able to tuck himself under Rhodey's wing.

Hey, yeah, there was an idea. Rhodey. He should call Rhodey and see what he was up to. Maybe he could—

Too late. Steve and Barnes were making their way back into the living room, and Barnes was taking the chair once again while Steve sat on the couch, this time on Tony's other side so that Tony was sandwiched between the arm of the couch and Steve. Steve crowded a little into him, and he put his arm around Tony's shoulders and pulled him in to give him a kiss on the cheek and said, "What're you doing?"

"Hmm? Nothing. Bullshit work," he said, letting Steve kiss him but not acknowledging anything beyond that.

Steve just reached out and took the phone from him. He started to protest, but Steve just set the phone aside and said to Barnes, "This one's always working. You should see. Sometimes, I literally have to carry him out of his lab and up to bed."

Barnes was looking at him, slightly confused, like he wasn't quite sure what to make of the situation.

"You keep calling her a 'he.' Why?"

Steve sighed a little. "Buck, I explained it to you. Tony's a fella, but he got turned into a woman."

Barnes just nodded, slowly, like the words still weren't making sense to him.

"He still thinks of himself as a fella, even though he looks like this."

"Is he…pregnant?"

Steve just grinned, either not hearing or ignoring the hesitance and slight disturbance in Barnes's voice. He put a hand on Tony's belly and rubbed it.

"Yes," he said, pride evident in his voice. "Yes, he is."

"Is it yours?"

"Who else's do you think it would be?"

Barnes shrugged, but he had that look on his face like he really wasn't sure what to make of the situation, like something halfway between a sneer and a grimace.

"You got a fella pregnant?" he finally asked.

"Yeah, but— As a woman," Steve reminded him. "It's… It's a little complicated. I told you. Some _really_ strange stuff out there we never could have even imagined when we were kids."

Barnes just looked between him and Steve. "Does he talk?"

Steve burst out laughing, and, were Tony in a better mood, he might bristle and huff and whine about that insinuation and whatever Steve thought was so fucking funny about it. As it was, he just smiled tightly at Barnes and said, "Yes, he talks. He just hasn't found himself with anything to say."

"Oh," Steve said and scoffed, "baloney. You never don't have at least _something_ to say. Even if you don't know what you're talking about."

Again, if he was in a better mood, he might bristle and insist that he _always_ knew what he was talking about. Instead, he just smiled tightly again and kept quiet.

Which did not go unnoticed by Steve.

"Hey," he said and nudged Tony a little. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong."

"No, something's wrong. What's wrong? You never pass up a chance to argue with me, and I just said something you would ordinarily consider a bald-faced lie."

Tony shrugged but said nothing, and Steve sat back a little.

"OK, now I know something is _definitely_ wrong. What's wrong? Are you OK? Are you feeling OK?"

"I'm fine," he said and totally was not gritting his teeth. "I'm just…tired, I suppose."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, Steve."

"You're positive? It's not something with the baby, right?"

Concern was etched over Steve's face, and Tony watched as Steve's gaze skirted all over his face as he looked for evidence that Tony wasn't as well as he was claiming to be.

Of course he would think it was something with the baby. Of course he wouldn't think it had anything to do with Tony's jealousies or the fact that Steve had gladly invited a deadly assassin into their midst — had spent the entire afternoon with said deadly assassin and hadn't even thought to check on him in the interim. Why would he ever give consideration to Tony when _Bucky_ was in the room?

So, he plastered a tight smile over his face and hoped it would be enough, but Steve just frowned and said again, "What's wrong?"

"What are you talking about?"

Steve motioned to his face. "I know that smile. That's the smile you usually reserve for senators you can't be bothered with or journalists you know are going to distort everything you say."

"I'm fine, Steve," he said and braced one hand on the arm of the couch and the other on Steve's leg to get the leverage he needed to get up. "I'm just a little tired. I'm going to go lay down. Have fun reminiscing with your pal."

Steve sighed out a, " _Tony_ ," in the way that Tony knew Steve had figured out exactly what Tony's problem was, but he still let Tony leave, and he gladly did so, going over to the bedroom and closing the door behind him. The room was relatively dark by this point in the evening, and he didn't bother to turn a light on, instead choosing to just flop down onto the bed and curl up on his side, pillow shoved between his legs again. Maybe he was being stupid or immature, but he didn't care. Steve, clearly, was more interested in spending time with his little pal from the bad old days, and Tony could give him that without sitting there pathetically and demanding the attention he thought he deserved from his husband during what was supposed to be a weekend getaway. Sort of. OK, it was more about riding out the shitstorm that he himself had caused, but whatever.

They'd planned for this to be a sexcation, and so far, they'd only done it _once_.

The door opened, sending a sliver of light into the room, and Steve said, " _Tony_ ," in that voice he had when he was displeased with a situation and closed the door behind him.

He didn't bother to acknowledge him. He just lay there curled up on his side, the little monster inside of him doing his evening workout, though, like before, he did find something almost comforting about the movements — almost as though, if nothing else, at least he had this.

"All right," Steve said and sat down on the bed behind him, "what's going on?"

"Nothing," he muttered, the words coming out as a slight pout, "I'm tired."

"Maybe," Steve said and reached out to put his hand on Tony's arm. Tony felt it and jerked his arm away before Steve could clamp down on it. "You're mad at me. Why?"

"Not mad. Tired."

"Yeah? Sometimes, you're as bad a liar as you claim I am. Why are you mad at me? Is it because of Bucky?"

Tony didn't say a word.

"It is. If it wasn't, you would have denied it." He exhaled a breath and said, "OK, why are you mad about Bucky?"

"Are you kidding?" he asked but didn't elaborate, insinuating that Steve should fucking _know_ already why Tony would be mad about him inviting a fucking _assassin_ into their _safe house_ during their fucking _weekend getaway_.

"Tony, I'm sorry," he said in that flat and even tone he used when he thought he was right about something and the other person was being unreasonable, "but Bucky's my friend. I— He found me. He searched for me—"

"He _followed_ us from the city. Hell, he evidently followed us from that shithole of a former Soviet satellite."

"Maybe so," Steve said in that annoyingly diplomatic way, and Tony rolled his eyes and stifled a groan because Steve was in too fucking deep here to see the forest for the trees, "but he's ready— He's not running any longer. He— He's ready to come home."

Tony would have asked 'what home?' but he already knew the fucking answer, which he felt like a punch to the gut.

No, that was the little parasite thumping or turning or whatever the fuck it was doing inside of him.

"How do you even know this is on the level, huh?" he asked, moving his hand to rest over his abdomen. "That this isn't some Hydra plot to lull you into some false sense of security and then when you're at your most vulnerable, _bam!_ Gunshot to the fucking head."

"If that was the case, he had several opportunities to do that during the afternoon."

"Or he's fucking programmed to wait until he knows you have him in his confidence again. Maybe it's a psychological thing. Hydra doesn't just want you to suffer, Steve, they want to crush you as they do it. What better way than to make you die by the hand of the person you trust most in the world?"

Steve was silent a moment before he reached out and brushed his fingertips over Tony's arm. This time, Tony let him.

"Because that would mean they got their hands on you," he said in a quiet voice, "and I would die before I let that happen to you."

He lay down beside Tony and spooned up behind him, putting his arm around him and resting a firm hand over the hand Tony still had on his belly, and Tony felt the dip of the mattress as Steve braced himself up on one arm and leaned in to nuzzle at his neck.

"You are more important to me than anybody has ever been in my life," Steve murmured into his neck. "I know you think you're in some kind of competition with Bucky over my attention, but you're not. Buck's my oldest pal, yeah, and I owe him a debt I don't think I can ever repay, but _you_ are just… There are no words good enough for what you are. You're my best friend, my greatest challenge, and the person I want to spend every lifetime with. I don't think I would have adjusted half as well to the future if it wasn't for you helping to guide me along the way. I… I love you, Tony. You know I love you, right?"

He shrugged but said nothing, and Steve leaned back some and turned him gently to face him in the dim light of the room.

"Hey," he said, and there was concern and a little bit of anger on his face, "you know that, right?"

He didn't, but he didn't really feel like dragging this conversation out any longer. Steve would do his best to try to convince Tony of how he felt, but Tony would know that the entire time he was with Tony he was thinking about getting back to hanging out with _Bucky_. He didn't feel like keeping Steve away from his truest desires any longer, so he smiled and nodded and said, "Yeah, I do."

"Good," he said and reached out to kiss Tony's forehead. "Because I do. More than I ever thought it was possible to love someone, and if I have to, I will spend the rest of my life getting you to believe that."

Tony shook his head. "No need. I believe you. Now, go out there and reminisce about all the good old days."

Steve ducked his head some like he was embarrassed. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I know we haven't really been talking about anything you could relate to."

Jeez, Steve was more far gone than he thought if he was under the belief that there was an actual exchange of words going on between him and Barnes and not just Steve talking constantly to fill up any and all awkward silences.

"It's fine," he said. "Same principle as to when Rhodey and I talk about our MIT days."

It wasn't, really, because Steve very gladly jumped into those conversations and would ask Rhodey to tell him everything about how Tony had been back in those days. And Rhodey would very gladly relay every and all embarrassing and awkward moments that he could remember, and Tony could not _wait_ until Rhodey got the time to introduce them to whoever it was he claimed to have been having some thing with over the course of the past year or so. Well, if this...whoever-it- was was even real and was not a) a figment of his imagination or b) inflatable. But he had a whole host of stories about Rhodey that he could not wait to embarrass him with.

Steve just kissed him again and rubbed his belly some. He rested his hand a moment then said a quiet and awed, "He's moving."

"Yeah," he said. "Does that a lot. Doesn't seem to realize it's kind of _weird_ and _annoying_ at times."

Steve chuckled a little and rubbed his belly some more once the movements had subsided again. Tony squeezed his legs together a little to try and stop that twinge of intrigue that was going on down there because there was no way Steve was going to follow through on it and Tony wasn't in the mood to finish it off himself.

But Steve continued to rub his belly, and he said, "I think I remember something about something we were going to do when we got back to the cabin before? Sorry it didn't work out but, uh, if you're up to it later on maybe? I'd very much like to watch."

Tony just squeezed his legs tighter because his body didn't seem to realize that it was a very inopportune time to be turned on by his mate.

But he hummed and said, "If I'm still awake by the time you come to bed, I'll let you see everything."

Steve's only response to that was to reach out and grab him to kiss him like he would never again have the chance, and when he pulled away, he murmured a breathy, "Square deal," and jumped up from the bed.

"Give me 'til ten," he said and ducked out of the room, closing the door behind him, and Tony just stared at the door and drummed his fingers on the mattress and wondered if he should be an ass about the whole thing and intentionally fall asleep before then.


	17. Chapter 17

* * *

In the end, he accidentally drifted off about five minutes before ten — or that was the last time he remembered looking at the clock, anyway.

He woke up in the night, Steve asleep beside him, and maybe because he'd slept so much during the day yesterday, but he was unable to fall back to sleep with ease. He tossed and turned a bit and tried not to be too obvious about it so that he wouldn't wake Steve up, and if he did at any point, Steve was a good sport at pretending not to be bothered in the least.

He huffed and sighed he didn't know how many times, stared at the wall, at the ceiling, at the door, at the shadows reflected by the moonlight from outside. He drummed his fingers on his belly and then rolled his eyes when that seemed to rouse the kraken hibernating therein, and he pressed his face into his pillow and moaned when sleep, after nearly an hour, still didn't overtake him.

It was at that point that he considered getting himself off just for the hell of it. The desperate need he'd felt for it earlier had subsided sometime during the night, and half of that arousal had come from the knowledge that Steve would be _watching_ him touch himself and pleasure himself, but Steve was asleep, and Tony wasn't about to wake him, especially considering that he was still a little annoyed with him. OK, a lot annoyed with him. He'd been promised a weekend of sex and goofing off with his husband, and instead, he'd been virtually ignored from the moment his husband's little pal had appeared from out of the shadows and seemingly decided to stop running.

He still wasn't sure if he believed that.

He still couldn't seem to sleep, so he got up and quietly padded out to the living room. He remembered as soon as he arrived that Barnes was sleeping on the couch, and he stood off to the side and stared at the sleeping assassin, wondering if this was all part of some plot that Steve would never believe — not until said plot was holding a fucking gun to his head, and even then.

He crept closer, making sure not to make too much noise that might rouse the bastard from his sleep, and he stood over him, seeing the mess of hair and the way his mouth hung open as he had maybe the first peaceful sleep in nearly seventy years, and he took a breath and murmured, "If you hurt him in any way, I will end you," then padded off to the kitchen.

Attempting to be as quiet as possible, he didn't turn any lights on, but he was kind of hungry, so he opened the fridge door and peered inside to see if there was anything quick to snack on. There was the last remnants of a pizza sitting on the table, but he wasn't in the mood for that, and he was too far away from civilization to send Steve out for some gelato— Mmm…chocolate peanut butter cup sounded really good right about now.

He huffed out a breath and whined a little as he saw what looked to be nothing good except for condiments and, ugh, _fruit_ , until he spied a small wrapped package on a lower shelf. He pulled it out and saw that it was an Italian sub with a fresh sell-by date, which meant Steve had probably bought it yesterday when he'd been out shopping.

He pulled it out, closed the door with his elbow, and took it over to the counter. He unwrapped it, the scents of processed deli meats and cheeses along with lettuce, tomato, onion, bread, and dressing creating a delicious symphony of smells that made his mouth water and his stomach grumble with desire. Or was that this fucking child looking for another free handout?

He rolled his eyes and picked up half of the sliced sandwich and bit into it, moaning as the flavors hit his taste receptors. God, what a fucking good sandwich! Maybe not the best he'd ever had, but certainly top five if not top three. Maybe he was just that hungry — sort of in the way those first burgers he'd eaten after returning from Afghanistan had been the most delectable things he'd ever eaten — but damn, if he wasn't already married, he'd seriously consider marrying this sandwich. At least the sandwich wouldn't rather spend time with the other rolls it had been baked with.

"What are you doing up?"

Tony turned, sandwich halfway to his mouth, and saw a yawning Steve entering the kitchen, scratching his stomach as he shuffled into the room. He ignored the question and took the bite, savoring the taste, and Steve checked the wrapper on the counter and said, "Oh, good, you found it."

"Ish shis fo' me?" he asked through a mouthful of food.

"Yeah. Wasn't sure if you'd want the pizza. But it looked like you'd already eaten by the time we got back, and I forgot to tell you it was in there if you wanted it."

He just swallowed that bite and took another.

"Is this a craving?" Steve asked, and Tony chewed and swallowed.

"No," he said. "Just hungry."

He took another bite, and Steve watched him — or, better, watched the sandwich — and asked, "You gonna finish that?"

Tony stopped mid-chew and stared at him a moment then said, "You want some?"

Steve made some disinterested motions with his hand, mumbling something kind of incomprehensible, but knew he was deflecting and really did want part of the sandwich, and he rolled his eyes and held it out to him.

"Here."

"What? No!" Steve said. "No, I got that for you."

"It's OK, Steve. You want some. Take some."

Steve hesitated only a second before he took hold of Tony's hands that were holding the sub and brought it up to his mouth. He took a large bite — a fucking large bite; Jesus Christ, what'd he do? Eat half the sandwich? — and chewed a few moments and said, "Not bad."

"You sure you got enough to make a judgment?" Tony muttered and took another bite of his suddenly smaller sub.

"I'm sorry," Steve said through his mouthful of chewed food.

Tony waved him off and chewed his own bite of food. "No biggie," he said through his mouthful. He swallowed and took another bite, and Steve went over to the fridge and grabbed the container of orange juice. In the light afforded by the opened fridge, Tony watched as he opened it and drank straight from the carton, and he swallowed his bite and said, "I hope you didn't offer your pal any of that."

Steve just pulled the carton away and wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand. "Why does it bother you so much?"

"Enzymes, Steve! Enzymes in saliva that are meant to break down food—"

"Yeah, but it's my saliva and my enzymes."

"Doesn't matter!"

"Drinking out of the carton of orange juice is bad, but you're perfectly fine with me filling you up with a 'metric ton' of come?"

"That's different."

Steve just shrugged. "Both body fluids."

Tony just rolled his eyes. "Look, it totally makes sense to me."

"You had no problem sharing your sandwich with me."

"Because I'm going to finish this bad boy in, like, two minutes. It won't have enough time for your enzymes to begin to break it down."

Steve just shook his head and took another gulp of orange juice.

"I am not disgusted by you, if that's what you think. Clearly, I am not disgusted by the idea of sharing body fluids with you. It's just the principle of the thing, Steve. That is perfectly good orange juice that you're backwashing into!"

Steve just stared and nodded, and he took another sip of orange juice. He set the container down on the counter, walked over to Tony, took the sandwich out of his hands and set it aside, and then swept him into his arms like he was going to pull one of those big, sweeping, romantic kisses, Tony bent backwards with Steve's arms securely around him.

"Steve, what are you—" he tried to ask but was silenced by Steve's mouth on his, and when he opened his mouth in a gasp, he was rewarded by—

Steve dribbling the orange juice into his mouth.

He screamed and smacked Steve, and Steve burst out laughing and pulled him back upright again. Tony, so surprised by what Steve had done, _swallowed_ the fucking juice, and he coughed and gagged and smacked Steve again and said, "What the _fuck?_ "

But Steve just continued to laugh and said, "Did you swallow?"

"Yes, I swallowed, you sick son-of-a-bitch!" He made a couple of disgusted — and over-the-top — gagging sounds and said, "The fuck did you do that for?"

Unsurprisingly, Steve did not have a good explanation for it. He merely said, "Shh! Bucky's trying to sleep!"

"I don't care!" he cried. "He should know what a disgusting son-of-a-bitch you are!"

"Is it _really_ more disgusting than me shooting into your mouth?"

He made a few exaggerated retching sounds and said, "That's different."

"How?"

"I don't know, Steve! I don't make the rules!"

"Shh!" he said through his laughs again and pointed into the living room. "Bucky—"

"Should know exactly what kind of pervert you are." He made a couple more disgusted sounds then said, "I'm going to get you back for that. You know that, right?"

Steve made a 'hmm' sound and put an arm around his shoulders to pull him into a half-embrace. "I know," he said and smacked a kiss to Tony's forehead, "and I look forward to it."

Tony thought about what he could even possibly begin to do to get him back when suddenly, it hit him.

"Are you sure?" he asked slyly, walking nimble fingers over Steve's firm pectorals.

"I think I can take whatever you can dish out."

"Mmm… I wouldn't be so sure if I were you," he said and lightly scratched his thumbnail over Steve's nipple, only the thin material of his t-shirt separating the nail from flesh. "I think there was talk earlier of me getting myself off and letting _someone_ in the vicinity watch."

Steve seemed to know — or fear — where this was going. "Yeah?" he said, his tone leading but unsure.

Tony slid his hand down over Steve's abdomen then reached beneath the hem of his shirt and slid his hand right back up over the hard, firm lines of muscle. _Fuck_ , he was built, wasn't he? He kind of just wanted to…bite…Steve's stomach — sink his teeth into that hard, firm muscle and lave it with his tongue all the way down—

Wait! No! Stop! Not supposed to get himself excited. Not part of the plan.

He hummed a little and practically purred into Steve's ear, "Well, we were so _rudely_ interrupted," as he toyed with Steve's erect and very sensitive nipple — if the hiss of breath was anything to go by. "And I'm still a little hot and bothered from earlier."

He wasn't, really, but Steve didn't have to know that. OK, well, he _hadn't_ been until he'd started to think about running his mouth all over Steve's—

Son-of-a- _bitch!_

Steve just reached up and covered the hand that was playing with his nipple. "Yeah, well," he said, his words a little unsure like he was having a hard time formulating them through the haze of lust that was plaguing his brain now. And Tony could say that for certain because there was nine inches of something beginning to press into him. Nine inches of something he very much wanted to suck on and—

Oh, for god's sake!

He hummed a little more and reached up to nibble at Steve's jaw, and Steve was able to formulate a thought that went a little something like, "You know, we really…shouldn't…do…this here. We should go back…"

Oh, thank god. Steve was still having a harder time of it than he was. He still had control over the situation.

"Mmm… Do you want to watch me, _Captain_ —"

"Tony, not tha—"

"Do you want to watch me pleasure myself? Get myself all worked up and writhing for you? Panting out your name? Desperate. Wanton. Thinking only of you as I work myself into a frenzy?"

Steve was attempting to pull him out of the kitchen. "It really would be better…if we…went into the bed— ah, _bedroom_ —"

"Mmm… Wouldn't it? So you can lay me back and take my clothes off, and I can spread my legs and reach down and rub my—"

Steve took a firm hold of him and made for the bedroom, and Tony turned back toward the kitchen and said, "But my sandwich—"

"Later!" Steve said and practically slammed the bedroom door closed behind them.

"You know he's probably awake for sure, right?"

"Don't care," Steve said as he turned the light on, and Tony squinted at the bright assault of light — which wasn't all that bright, but compared to what he'd been accustomed to in the kitchen, it sure was.

"You know, I think you left the fridge door open."

"Don't care," Steve reiterated and guided Tony over to the bed. "Where do you want me? Do you want me to stand? Sit? There's a chair over there. I can sit—"

"Hmm… First, how 'bout I go brush my teeth? It's hard to feel sexy when you have the taste of Italian sub and _orange juice_ in your mouth."

It was also hard to feel sexy when you had a fucking watermelon strapped to your gut, but Steve didn't seem to mind that.

"Yeah, OK," Steve said and stood at the foot of the bed looking like he wasn't sure what to do with himself, one hand at the back of his neck as he stared at the tousled sheets. "OK, yeah, go brush your teeth, and I'll be here."

"Mmm… Yeah, you will," he murmured and went into the adjoining bathroom. He closed the door behind him and thought about turning the lock but then decided against it. He did actually brush his teeth because, gross, both the sub and the orange juice, and then he stood there a moment and grinned as he plotted out his little masquerade.

"You know," he called out, "on second thought, I think I'm going to take a shower, too."

He swore he heard a little squeak of a whine from Steve, which was then followed by a weak, "OK."

He went over and turned the water on, and he pulled the stopper on the faucet to redirect the water to the showerhead. He pulled the curtain to close up the shower then sat down on the edge of the tub and waited a moment before he let out a soft and quiet moan.

"Tony?" came the muffled voice from the other side of the door.

He grinned. Perfect.

He let out another soft and breathy moan.

" _Tony?_ "

He gasped and then gasped again and then let out a groan.

"Tony, are you— Tony, what are you—?"

He gasped once more then whined out a moan and breathed out Steve's name.

"Tony, are you…? I thought you were going to…?"

He let out a loud and wanton moan, practically crying Steve's name—

And that's when the door slammed open.

Tony sat on the edge of the tub, the shower water running behind him, and looked up at Steve, who stared down at him in confusion, face flushed and _quite_ hard. He blinked, panted out two heavy breaths, then said, "Why, you—" and took exactly three steps over to him.

"Steve, what are you—" he tried to ask and then screamed out a laugh as Steve reached down and scooped him up into his arms. "Steve!" he cried and smacked at him. "Goddamn it, put me down! I'm the size of a whale! You'll break your back!"

But Steve just stormed out of the bathroom, Tony in a bridal carry in his arms, and he marched over to the bed and dropped him down onto it then climbed atop him and began to fucking _tickle_ him. Tony squealed in laughter and begged Steve to stop, smacking him as he did so, and Steve finally did let up, sitting back as he panted, his arousal practically straining through his boxer briefs.

"Are you done?" Steve asked, throaty and thick with desire.

He just hummed some and nestled back into the pillows. "That didn't quite work out the way I'd planned it."

Steve shrugged. "You know what they say about the best-laid plans."

But Tony exhaled a breath and said, "All right, Captain—"

"Tony, _please_ stop with the 'Captain' when I'm—"

But Tony just bent his knees and spread his legs wide, which…did not exactly have the desired effect given that Tony was still wearing sleep clothes.

"Limited time offer, Captain. Once it's gone, it's—"

Steve's eyes about bugged out of his head, and he leaned down and pressed a hard and sloppy kiss against Tony's mouth then pulled back and said, "No, I'm fine with it. I'm up for it. What do you need? Do you want me on the bed? Do you want me to stand? Should I sit on the chair over there? Do you want me to kneel? What do you want me to—?"

Tony reached up and put his hand over Steve's mouth to quiet him. "My god, Steve! You'd swear you'd never seen me masturbate before."

Steve reached up and pulled Tony's hand away. "Not in this body, I haven't."

"Mmm… That's right, you haven't. Well—" He lifted his hips and slid his sleep pants down. "First time for everything, Captain."

~*~

 _Fuck_ , Tony felt _good!_

He stretched languidly in the bed, working out muscles and kinks he hadn't realized were in such desperate need of relaxation.

Last night had been… Who knew Steve could get so worked up just _watching_ Tony stroke and play with himself? He could still see that look of wanton desperation in Steve's eyes, the pupils blown so wide as to make his blue eyes look almost black in the dim light, the way he'd tentatively reached out a hand, so desperate to _touch_ Tony, to be part of what Tony was doing to himself.

And Tony… Steve was good. Steve was very good. Steve was phenomenal. Hell, he'd volunteer Steve to teach a class on cunnilingus if he didn't think it would probably break some moral decency laws. But he'd heard it mumbled over the years that only a woman seemed to know what worked for her own body, and, truth be told, Tony kind of believed that. Because while Steve was _good_ , Tony realized last night that, to some degree, nothing beat pleasuring yourself with your own hand.

It was weird being in this body. It was his, and it wasn't his, but he couldn't deny that having the control over where to touch and what to touch and how much to work it was, to some degree, better than having to explain it to someone else. He'd even heard it said that some women had to finish themselves off after having sex with their partners, and he'd thought it an urban legend up to that point. Not that he'd ever had that problem with Steve, but if Steve wasn't so good, wasn't so attuned to what Tony wanted, and wasn't so willing and able to fulfill all of Tony's wishes and desires… Yeah, he could see having to do the job himself and enjoying it more than any man could ever possibly hope to give it to him.

On the other hand, it did make him wonder how good a lover he'd been in the past. He couldn't possibly _know_ any of this stuff until he'd experienced it for himself, and hell, even he couldn't always explain exactly to Steve what he wanted. Sometimes, it was just instinctual. He just knew how to move or where to move or what to touch. He couldn't explain it. He just _knew_ it.

He struggled to his feet and cleaned himself up in the bathroom — Steve, evidently, had turned the shower water off at some point — and he yawned and rubbed his belly and made his way into the kitchen—

Where Steve and Barnes sat, the kitchen looking like a bomb had gone off and the two of them digging through what looked like bags from McDonald's.

"Uh… What happened here?" Tony asked and motioned to the mess of pots and pans and dishes and… Was that _flour_ on the cabinet?

"He tried to cook for you," Barnes said, his voice a little broken but seeming to possess some amount of strength and awareness to it — a little more so than yesterday, even. "Told 'im it was a bad idea."

Tony turned to Steve, who blushed a little and shrugged. "Maybe I should just stick to boiling things?"

There was an egg on the stove — like someone had literally cracked an egg onto the stove — and Tony shook his head and said, "I don't want to know."

Steve held up the bag from McDonald's. "Egg McMuffins, if you're interested."

Tony snatched the bag off him and looked in. "Hash browns?"

"Of course."

"Coffee?"

"Nope," Steve said and took a sip of his large. Tony reached out to take it off him, but Steve just produced…a fucking _small_ for him.

He huffed and took it in hand. "OK, but this will only suffice because this coffee sucks."

"It's not that bad," Steve said, and Tony snorted.

"Please," he muttered and set the bag and the coffee down on the island and pulled a McMuffin out of the bag. He unwrapped it, took a large, savory bite, and said, "I fownd 'n arduckle, St'ven."

Barnes just turned to Steve in confusion, like Tony had started to speak a completely foreign language, and Steve did nothing but hand a paper napkin over to Tony.

"You did, did you?"

"Yesh," he said, spitting some of the food out. "Fuwck."

Luckily, it had just gone onto the wrapper Steve's sandwich was sitting on. Served the backwashing bastard right.

He swallowed. "Anyway, yes, I found an article. A small amount of coffee a day is A-OK."

"A small amount," Steve said, like he was trying to get the wording exact.

"Yeah."

"And what's 'a small amount'?"

He shrugged. "I don't know." He motioned to Steve's large. "I'm sure that's fine— Wait, where in the fuck did you even get this stuff?"

"There's a strip a couple towns away," Steve said with a shrug as he…looked something up on his phone.

"Whatever," Tony muttered and took a sip of the pathetically small coffee Steve had gotten for him. "Are you sure this isn't yours?" he asked and held the small cup up.

"Yep," he said, his gaze concentrated on whatever he was looking at on his phone.

"What? What are you doing?"

"Hmm? Oh, just checking to see if you're making things up again."

"Excuse me?"

"The coffee," Steve said. "Most of the articles agree on no more than twelve ounces a day." He pointed to Tony's coffee. "Pretty sure that's a twelve-ounce cup."

Tony just picked up the cup and looked at it. "No, that can't be right."

Steve laughed. "I think it is."

"No! That can't— There's barely anything in here!"

"You don't _need_ forty ounces of coffee in a sitting."

Tony just blinked at him. "I'm sorry. Have we met?"

Steve laughed. "I mean you. Pregnant. Like that. You don't need it."

"Ugh," he said and dug the hash brown out of the bag. "Could we not mention that?"

"What?"

"That I'm preg— _ugh_. I can't even say it."

Steve arched an eyebrow at him. "Really? After all this—?"

"What have I _told_ you, Steven? I waffle on this. Sometimes I'm OK with it, sometimes I like to pretend this is all a dream."

Steve just frowned and reached out to take gentle hold of his wrist. "I know, honey. I'm so—"

"If you say you're sorry, I'm cutting your balls off."

Even Barnes seemed to wince at that. But Steve, champ that he was, just blinked and said, "For saying I'm sorry?"

Tony shoved half the hash brown in his mouth. "I ghet ih, Stebe. Yowr sowwy. Y' don' hafta keep w'peatin' ih ev'ry time ah turn awound."

Barnes turned to Steve. "You understood that?"

But Steve just kept his gaze on Tony and said, "I do mean it. You know if I could change places with you—"

Tony groaned and swallowed the bite. "I _know_ , Steve. I know. We've gone over this. I appreciate it. I do. But please just…"

"Just what?"

He frowned and considered what he wanted to say. "Just support me on this, OK? Just back me up and tell me how good a job I'm doing and how proud you are of me. Tell me you're going to stick by me and you're never going to leave me and that I can always count on you. OK?"

He glanced up and met Steve's gaze, brown locking into blue, and he watched as Steve's eyes skirted all over his face, a small smile playing at his lips, and he shifted his hand from Tony's wrist to take Tony's hand in his.

"You are doing a _fantastic_ job," Steve said and gave his hand a little squeeze, "and I am so proud of you I could bust. You are just…amazing at how you're handling this, and I'm just…in awe of how you're able to do it. And I am never, ever going to leave you. You're stuck with me 'til the end of time, whether you like it or not, and you can always, always count on me to back you up one hundred percent."

Tony's vision went a little blurry, and he frowned and said, "Goddamn it, Steve," and reached up with his free hand to brush the stupid, fucking tears away.

"Hey," Steve said, reaching up with his other hand to cup it around the hand he already held, his face sober and serious, "you know all that, right? Don't ever doubt that for a second. It's you and me, together through all of this, got it? I am _not_ letting you go for anything."

He nodded, lowering his gaze to the hand that was held between Steve's.

"Good," Steve said and brought the hand up to his lips to kiss it. "Now, finish your breakfast," he said and motioned to the food in front of him. "It's getting cold."

He nodded again and turned back to his breakfast, and when he glanced up to look in Barnes's direction, he saw an eclectic combination of emotions crossing his face: old-school pride that his pal had scored himself a catch—

And complete and utter relief that he wasn't going to have to save Steve from himself again. Maybe Barnes wasn't so bad after all?

It was hard to say that for certain, though. He didn't talk much, and Tony got the feeling that Steve was expecting more of Barnes than Barnes would be able to give — at least yet — but he was good for a look or a crack every now and then, and later that afternoon, as they packed up their stuff to take back to the city, Steve scratched the back of his head and said, "Uh, honey?"

"Hmm?" he asked, rolling his eyes and repacking the _horrible_ job Steve had done with the suitcases. Jesus Christ, didn't anyone ever teach this man not to just ball clothes up and shove them in something?

"Would it— Would you— Could we— Would it be possible—"

Tony glanced up. "You want to take Barnes back to the city with us."

Relief spread over Steve's face as Tony got the words out for him that he couldn't seem to. "Yeah."

Honestly, he'd just assumed it was a given. What, were they going to drive off, leaving him on the side of the road to find his own way? The guy was functional, but he sure as fuck needed a lot of help to get back to _some_ semblance of a normal life after what had happened to him, and at the moment, the Avengers were probably the best-equipped to do that for him.

"Yes, Steve," he said to Steve's further relief. "He can come back with us."

Steve just pulled him into his arms and kissed the crown of his head. "Thank you," he murmured.

But Tony just shook his head and patted his back. "Don't mention it, babe. Happy to do it."

Steve smiled his relieved thanks at him and went off to tell Barnes the good news.

Now, strangely — or maybe not so strangely — Barnes wasn't as excited about this turn of events as Steve was, but he just shrugged and said sure, he'd go back with them, and climbed into the back seat as Steve took the wheel and Tony got into the passenger. Steve completely ignored this blasé attitude and instead rambled on about all the amenities the Tower had and how much he'd like the other Avengers and how helpful JARVIS was — neglecting to inform him that JARVIS was a computer AI. Tony figured Steve was saving that for a surprise.

"It's really amazing, Buck," Steve said as he merged onto the interstate. "You just— You have to see it for yourself. You'll never believe it. It's like something we could only have dreamt about."

Barnes just nodded but said nothing, preferring to spend most of his time staring out the window beside him until one time too many times that Steve mentioned about Tony building or paying or _something_ for them, and Barnes looked at him and said, "You have money?"

"Uh," Tony said and frowned. "Kind of. Own a company. My father started it— You knew _Howard_ , right?"

Barnes didn't meet his gaze, instead staring down at the console between the driver's and passenger's seats. "Howard?" he murmured like he was being pulled from a dream.

"Yeah, Stark. From the war. _Not_ that I'm bragging, but I'm just saying it for your benefit."

Barnes looked up at him, and Tony winced at the haunted horror he saw staring back at him. "I killed him."

Tony blinked and looked between a suddenly confused Steve and Barnes. "Uh, _what?_ " he said, turning his attention back to Barnes.

"Stark," he said, his voice gravelly and disgustingly matter-of-fact. "I killed him."

Steve sucked in a breath, and Tony looked between him and Barnes and said, "No, Hydra—"

But Barnes looked at him — really _looked_ at him— partially haunted but now with an undercurrent of pity, almost as though to remind him of _who_ exactly Hydra had been.

And then, it was like all the pieces of the puzzle were sliding together, and a picture that he had never wanted to see but had known was there all the time had formed and could not be erased.

He'd known since the downfall of SHIELD that Hydra had had his parents killed. Well, they were after Howard, and his mother had been an innocent victim, but still. He'd known that Hydra had killed his parents, and that… That had been good enough for him. Not that he was happy about it — far from it — but at least he knew that it wasn't an 'accident' as it was made out to be. Hydra had purposely murdered his parents, though for exactly what purpose he wasn't sure he'd ever know.

But now…

Now, he was face-to-face with the man that had pulled the trigger, the man that had made him an orphan, the man that had put a multi-million dollar company into his hands at the age of twenty- one. Here was the man that had taken his mother from him, and all he could think, all he could do, all he wanted—

Was to be sick.

"Steve," he said, his gaze never leaving the murder's haggard face, "pull over."

"Tony—"

" _Steve_ , pull the car over _now_."

Steve signaled and pulled onto the shoulder, and once he'd gotten the car stopped, Tony fumbled with the door handle then jumped out and ran to the brush and vomited up everything he'd eaten in the last day. He retched so hard that he sank to his knees, using his hands for balance, the gravel of the side of the roadway digging into his palms, and before he knew it, there was a comforting hand on his shoulder and a soothing voice telling him it was OK and he'd be OK and—

" _Fuck,_ Steve! _Fuck!_ "

"OK, OK, OK," Steve was saying over and over. "OK. It's OK. You're OK."

Tony struggled to his feet, wiping his mouth off with the back of his dirt-stained hand. "OK? _OK?_ " He pointed to the— the _thing_ that was now standing beside his car. "My parents, Steve. He murdered my parents. That— That _person murdered_ my _parents_ , Steve!"

Steve put his hands up like he was trying to calm him. "Honey, I know. OK? I know. I under—"

" _No_ , Steve. I don't think you understand. I don't think you _get it_. He killed my parents. He fucking _murdered_ my parents, Steve!"

If he was in a better place, he would note that Steve looked practically gutted by this, grimacing and looking like he was on the verge of tears himself. But he wasn't in a good place, and he couldn't possibly be bothered with whatever emotions Steve was feeling at the moment.

"Tony, it— It wasn't him."

"The fuck it wasn't! You heard him. You heard him, Steve! He admitted it. He killed my parents."

"Tony, it was Hydra—"

"Which, until a year ago, he was a fucking important part of!"

"Not by choice!"

Tony winced back a little and blinked. "I'm sorry. Are you _defending_ him?"

But Steve, shoulders heavy with anguish, just gave Tony the most pleading look he'd ever seen. "Tony, _please_ , I know—"

" _No_. No, I don't think you do. I don't think you understand. I don't think you fucking _get it_ , Steve! Your friend over there?" He pointed. "Fucking _murdered_ my parents."

"I _know_ , Tony," he said, squeezing his eyes shut like that could somehow block out this horrible turn of events. "Could you _please_ keep your voice down?"

"Wait, _what?_ You— You want me to— I'm sorry, are you trying to tell me I'm getting too emotional over the fact that the _thing_ that murdered my parents just fucking came out and _admitted it to me in my own fucking car?_ Is _that_ what you're telling me, Steve? 'Cause if it is, I got news for you, babe—"

"No, I'm not saying that at all," he said with a curt shake of his head and opened his eyes. "What I'm _saying_ is could you _please_ stop screaming that he murdered your parents."

" _He did!_ " he shrieked, his voice hitting that high, pitchy screech he hated. "He goddamned did, Steve, and if you can't see that—"

"James Barnes did _not_ murder your parents!" Steve said, nostrils flaring and gaze steely. "Buck would never do anything like—"

Tony groaned and rolled his eyes, throwing his hands up in the air. "Why do I even bother?" he asked the sky. "Why?" He turned his attention back to Steve. "Who the _fuck_ do you think the Winter Soldier was, Steve?"

"Tony, I'm not going to ask you again. _Please_ keep your voice down."

Tony motioned around them, spinning around with his arms open wide. "We're in the fucking boonies, Steve! No one around for miles to hear us! Cars on the highway are going by too fast to hear."

"You still don't have to shout it out at the top of your lungs."

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, god-fucking-forbid. Wouldn't want to hurt your precious _Bucky's_ feelings. He gets sensitive about all the straight-up fucking _murder_ he's committed over the years."

Steve's face went a little hard at that. "Tony. _Stop_."

"Or what? What are you going to do?" When Steve just stared back at him but didn't say anything, Tony said, "Yeah, that's what I thought," and turned and made to go back to the car. "Get in the car. We're going home."

"Uh, are you sure it's a good idea you being in the car with him at the moment?"

Tony stopped and turned back to him. "What? Whoa— _Who_ says he's coming back with us?"

Steve's face fell. "Tony, you promised!"

He squawked out a laugh. Wait, did Steve _really_ think—

"Yeah, that was before I found out he fucking _murdered my parents!_ "

Steve did a quick glance between him and Barnes. "Tony, I— You can't just _leave_ him here."

"The hell I can't! Watch me! You coming or what?"

He made to go back to the car again, but Steve hesitated a moment then said from behind him, "Tony, I can't. He's— He's my _friend_."

_Always come second to Barnes…_

He stopped, something sharp and painful hitting him in the chest. He turned to Steve and met his tired anguish and said, "I'm your…" He frowned and motioned over himself, unsure of the word he should use. 'Husband' in spirit but 'wife' in body?

"I know," Steve said, and Tony could just _hear_ the 'but' coming. "But I— I _owe_ it to him, Tony."

Yep, there it was.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky, and I just— I can't leave him."

Tony swallowed and tried to keep his voice calm as he said, once more because _clearly_ Steve hadn't heard him the first fifty times, "He killed my parents, Steve."

Steve shook his head. "No, he didn't. The Winter Soldier did. Bucky didn't."

Tony arched an eyebrow. "Is there a difference?"

Steve's eyes hardened and narrowed at that. "Yeah. There is."

"Can you be sure of that? He hasn't been your _Bucky_ in damn near seventy years, Steve! I know for you it's only been a couple of years — a couple of years you've spent with _me_ — but it's been seventy fucking years for him, Steve. He's spent more of his life as the Winter Soldier than I've fucking been alive!"

"Tony, keep your voice down—"

"Why? Does it embarrass you to hear the truth? He's your pal? Yeah? Well, I'm your fucking husband that's masquerading as your mysterious _friend_ that's pregnant with your child. Maybe Bucky was all you had back in the bad old days, but he's not what you have now. You've got me, and you've got the other Avengers—"

"He needs me, Tony. He—"

"And I don't? I'm sorry, do we have to go over this again?"

"Tony, _please_ , don't make me—"

"What? _Choose?_ " He snorted a bitter laugh. "Don't worry. I'll make it easy for you." He turned on his heel and marched back to the car, gravel crunching under his sneakers.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked.

"Hmm?" Tony went over to the driver's side door and wrenched it open. "Doing what I should have done at that warehouse. Getting the fuck out and letting you chase after your little pal. It's what you want, isn't it?"

"Hey!" Steve called and ran over to him. "The _hell_ ," he growled and grabbed hold of Tony's wrist so hard and so tight that Tony cried out because _holy shit!_ The man had a grip. He tried to jerk his wrist away, but Steve didn't give, and Tony looked up at him and, mustering all the fight he had in him, said a very succinct, "Let go of me."

Steve must have sensed he had gone too far, as he dropped Tony's wrist like it had burned him, a look of surprise on his face, and Tony glared at him, narrowing his eyes, and said, "You don't like bullies, Steve? Take a fucking look in the mirror."

He got into the driver's seat and slammed the door. He started the engine, and as Steve tried to plead with him, he threw it into gear and checked his mirrors before he gunned it and took off down the shoulder then merged back onto the highway, leaving Steve and his son-of-a-bitch pal in the dust.

The speedometer hovered around ninety as he careened down the interstate, and he flexed his hands around the steering wheel and didn't even bother to signal as he swerved around traffic. Fuck him. Fuck him so much. Natasha was wrong. He didn't know what he'd been getting into with Steve. Because _Bucky_ wasn't a factor when he'd first gotten together with Steve. _Bucky_ was fucking dead as a doornail — or so everyone thought — and Steve had been pushing forward with his life.

But then _Bucky_ had shown up in the middle of a firefight in Washington, and Steve had all but blown a fuse, and suddenly thereafter, it became all about Steve trying to track his old buddy down. It was his obsession, along with rooting out Hydra. It was all he could think about, and Tony…

Tony was a distraction.

Not at first. He knew he wasn't at first. He knew what he had with Steve was special. He knew when Steve looked at him he saw his world. But then _Bucky_ had shown up, and suddenly, all Steve wanted to do was get back to the fucking war and get a do-over.

He knew Steve didn't think of _Bucky_ in that way. He knew it wasn't about that. But it was about getting back a life he felt had been stolen from him, and letting go of a lesser life he'd been given in return. Because that's all this life could ever be. It was a replacement, and a shitty one at that. It was about getting back to the war and his pals and _Howard_ and Peggy—

He took a deep breath.

It wasn't lost on him that, gifted with this appearance, he bore a superficial similarity to Steve's first love. And, as the saying went, you never forget your first. But the height, the coloring, the build, the attitude — he was a poor man's Peggy Carter. Of course Steve would be attracted to him this way. Of course Steve would like him this way. Of course Steve would probably want him to stay this way.

Because like this, Steve got what had been taken away from him. He got his _Peggy_. Steve hadn't been moving on; Steve had been looking for replacements. Tony was a replacement and, until he'd been turned into this, a shitty one at that.

He didn't even notice he'd been crying until the roadway ahead of him went a little blurry, and he blinked and felt a flood of tears fall down his cheeks. He sniffled and lifted his non-aching hand from the steering wheel to wipe them away, resolute that he wasn't going to cry over this. Fuck him. Fuck Steve Rogers. He was not crying over that son-of-a-bitch.

He wasn't worth it.

" _Sir,_ " JARVIS intoned through the speakers, " _Captain Rogers is attempting to contact you—_ "

"Tell him to go to hell, J. Not interested in his bullshit."

JARVIS was quiet a moment before he said, " _I've been asked by Captain Rogers to inform you that he wishes to express his sincerest apologies for his behavior. He should never have grabbed you like that, and he hopes there will not be any bruising._ "

Tony scoffed and rolled his eyes. Bruising? He'd be fucking lucky if it wasn't cracked.

" _And he would like you to be aware that there is never a choice to be made, and if there were, it would always be you._ "

"Except when it isn't. Except when given the choice between his husband— wife— whatever the _fuck_ I am and the man that murdered his husband's parents, he chooses the murderer."

" _I think I should remind you that you did drive off without allowing Captain Rogers the chance to get back in the car._ "

"And, what? Allow that asshole to climb back in, too? 'cause you know he'd insist. Steve, not the asshole. I think the asshole has more decency than that."

" _Sir, I have been asked by Captain Rogers—_ "

"Nope! Don't want to hear it! Captain Rogers can fall in a ditch for all I care. And you can tell him that. Tell him those exact words, and make sure he knows this is not me being 'sensitive.' This is me done with his bullshit. This is me done feeling like I'm not good enough for him. This is me letting him chase after his precious _Bucky_ because that's what he wants — that's what he's always wanted."

The next voice he heard was not from JARVIS, however, but from Steve, and a broken voice at that.

" _Tony, I never… I never meant for you to feel—_ "

"Nope!" he cried. "Cut it! Mute it! Don't care. Don't want to hear from him. Don't want to hear his voice."

Steve's voice cut out, and Tony was left only with the hum of the road noise and the quiet rumble of acceleration. And the heavy silence of JARVIS's disapproval, he was certain, but whatever because fuck. _Fuck_.

His parents. His fucking _parents_. His fucking parents were...by... God, he could still remember the last time he'd ever seen his parents.

It was right before Christmas. He was home, lying on the couch, dressed like a bum in a Mister Softee t-shit and wearing a red Santa hat on his head. His mother, dressed so impeccably in her blue suit, hair and makeup done, sat at the piano. She was playing that song from _The Fantasticks_. Try to remember…

Remember? He'd spent so many years trying to forget.

Howard was being an ass as usual. They were going to the airport. He hadn't given it any thought. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary. He couldn't have known it would be the last time he'd ever see them.

If he had known, at the very least, he would have said 'goodbye.'

He couldn't have known. How could he have known? How could any of them have known? And the reason for that — the reason he was an orphan, the reason he'd never got to see his mother one last time — was standing somewhere along the side of the road several miles back.

And his own fucking husband was back there with him. Where he wanted to be — where he'd always wanted to be. Because...

No, not thinking that. Not going down that route again. Not now. Not ever. Son-of-a-bitch wasn't worth it. He wasn't worth the tears, not like...

He'd kept saying his parents. He'd kept telling Steve that— that _thing_ had killed his parents, but it was more than that.

He'd killed his mother. He'd taken his mother away from him.

Howard was such a… But his mother... _his mother_... He'd loved his mother so much. She was a smart, sophisticated woman. Beautiful. Generous. Kind.

And she'd loved him.

Maybe he'd been a nuisance to Howard, but not to his mother. His mother had loved him, had wanted him, had taught him so many wonderful things in her soft, gentle way, had had to play the buffer between him and Howard for so long, had been the patient, reasonable one. He might have been a pain-in-the-ass and a burden to Howard, but to his mother…

He sniffled and blinked another stream of tears down his face, only realizing then he'd spent the past several minutes rubbing his bruised hand against his belly. He stilled the motion, letting his hand rest against the swell, and got a little bump against the inside of his abdominal wall for it. He choked out a cry and signaled to move over to the shoulder before he lost control of himself, and after getting the car securely stopped, he threw it into park and hugged his arms around his belly, resting his forehead against the top of the steering wheel as he sobbed out everything. All the hurt, all the pain, all the anger, all the humiliation, all the fear, all the contempt, all the worry, all the doubt, all the suspicion...

He'd blamed Howard. For so long, deep down, he'd blamed Howard for killing his mother. For not watching where he was going. For maybe having a bit too much eggnog before he got behind the wheel. For being a dumbass and swerving to avoid something and not seeing the giant, fucking tree in the way. He'd blamed him. He'd blamed him for taking his mother away from him.

And as it turned out, it hadn't been Howard at all.

It had been Hydra. They'd found that out back when they'd been on the run. Hydra had had his parents killed — or at least his father. His mother was the quintessential innocent bystander caught in the fray, but his father was the target. For what reason, he didn't know and wasn't sure he'd ever know, but Hydra had been the ones to do it. Not Howard.

And they'd used his husband's best friend to do it.

James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky. Best pal of Captain fucking America — the man Howard Stark was convinced his own son could never live up to. Captain America's best pal Bucky had killed Howard—

Had killed his mother.

He thought he was going to be sick again. He swallowed whatever it was that was coming up in his throat and hugged his arms tighter around himself. He sobbed, pressing his forehead even tighter against the steering wheel and letting the tears fall everywhere.

His mother. _Bucky_ had taken his mother away from him. Had killed her. That wonderful, fantastic woman whose only mistake in life had been to get mixed up with Howard fucking Stark. _Bucky_ had murdered her.

The baby moved inside of him, almost like he suspected Tony needed the reassurance that he wasn't alone, and through it all, Tony choked out a laugh and loosened his arms some to rub a hand over the swell of his abdomen.

God almighty, and here he was. Technically, honestly, on his way to being a mother himself. God, what would his mother have said to that? Probably would have shook her head in sadness and disappointment. Oh, not that he'd gotten turned into a woman and knocked up—

But that Steve Rogers had been the one to do it.

She'd supported Howard's efforts to locate Steve to the best of her ability, knowing it was part of a life that had predated her and knowing how important Steve had been to Howard, but even she'd grown wary of what she'd felt was Howard's lost cause. Once, he'd even caught her chastising Howard for, once again, comparing the great Captain to his worthless son that would never be able to live up to that greatness.

But if she'd found out that Tony — her Tony — had gotten himself mixed up with his father's lifelong obsession… He could hear her voice now:

" _Darling, I don't care who you chose to love, but does it have to be_ him?" Maybe she had — or would have had had she still been alive — a point? He loved Steve. He loved Steve so much.

But Steve didn't love him — not in the same way, not as much. Steve had settled for the first sure thing that had come his way. Why, Tony didn't know, but he had. Maybe having missed his chance with Peggy had scared him, had made him afraid not to act, made him jump into bed with the first brown-eyed brunette that had looked his way after he'd come out of the ice.

OK, maybe not the first. He was sure there were others that had looked Steve's way before he, for whatever reason, settled for Tony. And he did. Settle. How could it be anything but? He was Captain America, and Tony, as he'd been assured many times over the years, was not.

Assured by the man that had been murdered by the best friend of the oh-so-wonderful Captain.

He pulled away from the steering wheel and sat back against the seat, bumping the back of his head against the headrest. He snuffled and kept his hand on his belly, and he thought once more of his mother and her soft, sophisticated way. He thought of her stroking a light hand over his face and calling him 'dear' or 'darling' and kissing his cheek. He closed his eyes, and he smiled as he thought of her looking upon him as he appeared now and saying in her soft, calm way, " _Darling, who did this to you?_ " And then, determined and resolute, " _Don't worry about it, we'll make it right._ "

God, he could have used his mother right about now. At least it would be one person that could kind of understand what he was going through. He could never say for absolute certain how she would react to this whole mess he'd gotten mixed up in, but he was sure she was strong and capable enough to accept the fact that she could become a grandmother through the most unconventional means imaginable.

He sighed out a breath and stared out the window beside him, watching the traffic pass as he rubbed a protective hand over his belly. He really did wish his mother was here to see this — wished his mother could meet her grandchild. His mother would know what to do about this. His mother would know what to do about all of this. She could probably even give him some pointers about this whole...exercise of sorts. Because whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was going to be a mother himself. He had no choice in the matter, and technically, 'mother' was the proper term. He was pregnant. He was going to have a baby.

And that baby was going to know it was loved and wanted and appreciated. Whatever happened with Steve — God, he didn't even want to think about that son-of-a-bitch at the moment — this child was only ever going to know love and security. This baby would know he loved him as much as he knew his own mother had loved him. There would never be any doubt in his mind.

His father might end up a fucking deadbeat asshole obsessed with a figure from his past — oh, dear god, was Steve that much like Howard? Did he really marry his father? — but his _mother_ loved him and cherished him and would do anything for him, and this baby was going to know the same.

And fuck Steve Rogers. Seriously, fuck him — and not in the kind of way that old pervert enjoyed!

He sniffed one more time and wiped the remnants of stray tears from his face before he swallowed and signaled to pull back onto the road, waiting until the sparse amount of traffic passed before he pulled back onto the roadway. He drove in silence for what was probably a couple miles before he snuffled, wiped under his nose, swallowed, and said, "Look, not that you can hear me — and even if you could, not that you could understand me, but...did I ever tell you about your grandmother...?"

It was a long drive back to the city, a good deal of which he spent speaking into thin air under the guise that he was talking to his underdeveloped fetus because...why not? No one else to talk to.

About halfway to their destination, he put on the '80s satellite channel, the volume low enough so that he could hear it but it wouldn't be distracting to his storytelling, which had highlighted everything he'd ever heard and known about his mother, everything she'd done, and everything she'd done for _him_ , ending with his fervent belief that she would be delighted at seeing Tony becoming a parent and becoming a grandparent herself.

Even if it was through such unconventional means. And even if one Steve Rogers had been the proverbial 'sperm donor.' She could probably learn to live with that. She wouldn't be happy about it, but she'd learn to live with it.

The sun had set behind him, and the city was lit up like a jewel by the time he saw its glorious view as he barreled down the road that led to the Lincoln Tunnel, his own tower shining like a Christmas tree in the center of the island — welcome, comforting—

Something to remind him of Steve. Goddamn it.

"Any traffic delays, J?" he asked, and the music cut out for JARVIS to respond.

" _The coast is clear into Manhattan and all the way to the Tower, Sir. Only minor stoplight delays are expected,_ " JARVIS replied, and Tony nodded and tapped his hands on the steering wheel, grimacing at the continued ache in his right wrist.

"My asshole husband tried to contact me any more?"

" _Captain Rogers attempted to establish contact three more times since you left him on the side of the road. He was very contrite on each occasion._ "

"Yeah, that's sweet, J. But I'm pretty sure there's a gigantic paw print on my wrist right now, and I didn't want to say anything, but it hurts like a bitch."

" _I can scan it once we arrive back at the Tower to check for any breaks or fractures_."

"Yeah, he better just _hope_ there aren't any breaks or fractures," he muttered and swung the car down the approach ramp to the tunnel. "May have to let it slip to Rhodey or Pepper if there is. Think Happy'd like to get in on that, too."

" _A most unfortunate circumstance for Captain Rogers, indeed_."

He 'hmphed' a bit in thought and coasted through the tollbooth then made for the center tube. "I'm not overreacting here, am I, J?" he asked as he cut in front of a bus and gunned it into the tunnel. "I mean, he clearly picks _Bucky_ over me, right? I have— I have reason to be pissed about that."

" _I'm not certain Captain Rogers chose the aforementioned 'Bucky' over you, Sir._ "

"Yeah huh," he said and followed the curve of the road until it straightened out for the ride beneath the river, scant few taillights ahead of him and a smattering of headlights coming toward him in the dim amber light of the tunnel. "Gave him a choice, J. He chose to stay on the side of the road with _Bucky_ , you know, the one that killed my parents."

" _Again, Sir, I don't believe you allowed Captain Rogers the chance to reenter the vehicle—_ "

"He wasn't going to, J!" he shouted and checked his speed, as he realized he was catching up to the traffic ahead of him rather quickly. He lessened the pressure on the accelerator. "He wasn't getting back in the car, J," he said, calmer but a little sadder. "You've heard what he's said about his pal. He'll stick by him 'til the end of the line. Ever heard him express anything similar about me?"

JARVIS was silent a moment before he said, and Tony would swear he sounded a little mournful, " _No, I don't believe I have, Sir_."

"See what I mean?"

" _But I think I should remind you that the nature of his feelings for Sergeant Barnes—_ "

"Don't call him that! Don't allow him that! He's a fucking murderer is what he is."

" _Point taken. However, I do think I should remind you that the nature of the Captain's feelings for him are not nearly on the same level as his feelings for you. As far as I can gather, his feelings for his friend are purely platonic in nature while for you—_ "

"I'm rich and easy, J. S'all there is to it."

" _I think I would have to disagree with that statement._ "

"Eh, you're allowed. Doesn't mean you're right, but you're allowed to disagree."

" _The Captain has many times expressed his desire and admiration for you in a way that does not speak of a 'platonic' nature for his feelings._ "

"Again, I'm rich and easy. I'm someone to take the edge off with. He has his _Bucky_ back. Now all he needs is his Peggy Carter — oh, and maybe the Stark he actually liked. You know, my asshole father. Fuck," he said and laughed, "I'm like a universal replacement! Lost your best pal? Here, have a Tony Stark. Lost your girl? Here, have a Tony Stark. Lost your Howard Stark? Here, have a Tony Stark. Has more defects, and it's not as good as the 'Howard' model, but it should hold you over for a while."

" _I do not believe the Captain would wish to hear you talk about yourself in that way, Sir_."

"Why not?" he muttered and followed the curve of the road as it wound its way back up from under the river. "It's the truth, isn't it?" He scoffed. "Fuck, how could I have been so blind? What, Captain America's really going to want to get with me? Jesus, how could I—"

He shook his head and led the car out of the tunnel and onto Manhattan city streets. He bore to the left for Midtown and followed the roads back to the Tower.

" _Sir, if I may_ ," JARVIS said after a moment, " _Captain Rogers is not one to express his feelings openly. He seems to prefer showing his affection in the form of actions. In that, the Captain has never once appeared to act out of obligation toward you but rather out of desire. I believe his grounding of you for the remainder of your pregnancy was done out of concern for your welfare, and he is always trying to ensure that you eat enough and get enough rest. I would be so bold as to say the Captain enjoys taking care of you and wishes to do so for many years to come_."

"Well," he conceded as he pulled to a stop at a red light, "at least he did until _Bucky_ came back in his life. Now, he can take care of his little pal that evidently can't take care of himself. Oh, wait! Yes, he can, and clearly has been for quite some time. _Or—_ Unless this is all some bullshit Hydra plot for _Bucky_ to worm his way back into Steve's life so he can fucking shoot him point blank and be done with it already. And what will that self-sacrificing idiot do?" He laughed hysterically. "Put the barrel to his own forehead and help him pull the trigger!"

" _I'm sure the Captain's fight-or-flight instincts would activate in such a situation._ "

Tony made a 'pfft' sound. "Please," he said and hit the accelerator when the light turned green, "Steve Rogers? If he thought it would help _Bucky_ , he'd fucking pull the trigger on himself."

" _As you said I'm allowed to do, I will have to disagree with you on this_."

"Free country, J," he said and swung the car into the basement garage for the Tower. He pulled through the gate then waited for it to close behind him before he pulled around and parked the car back in its appointed space. He shut the car off and leaned back in the seat, head hitting against the headrest, and he groaned and rubbed his eyes and struggled with the thought of having to get out of the car. He'd been cooped up like that for over three hours, and his muscles were screaming with ache and with exhaustion, but he just didn't want to move. Not yet.

He hit the button to pop the trunk, and he heaved out a breath and got out of the car, slamming the door shut and wincing as he used his right hand to do so. He looked down at his wrist and saw the ugly red and purple bruises that had already formed, and he rubbed it a little and went over to the trunk to grab his bag. Fuck Steve's bag. The bastard could grab it himself if he ever decided to come back home.

He reached in with his left hand, the soft amber lights of the garage catching on the diamonds and sapphires on his ring finger. He paused to look at it a moment, and he half-considered ripping it off and chucking it across the garage, but he figured he'd probably regret it in the morning, and so he left it be and just grabbed his bag and set it on the ground to slam the trunk shut.

Besides, it was worth a decent amount. He could sell it and donate the proceeds to charity.

With an annoyed sniffle — fuck it, _no_ , he was _not_ crying over this — he went over to the elevator and stepped on as soon as the doors opened. "Penthouse, J," he called out, but JARVIS said, " _If you would like me to scan your wrist, we'll need to stop at the lab first._ "

He groaned and said, "Fine," and he rode the elevator in silence until they got up to the lab's level, and Tony left his bag in the elevator and went in. "Quickly, J," he said and yawned. "Kinda falling asleep on my feet here."

He took a seat at his worktable, and JARVIS said, " _Of course, Sir. If you would just hold still a moment._ "

He waited for JARVIS to finish his scan, and he rubbed his wrist afterward and said, "Well?"

" _I am not detecting any breaks or fractures. The bruising is mostly surface-level. However, I would ice it and not put too much pressure on it for the next twelve-to-twenty-four hours._ "

"Square deal," he said and hopped off the chair. He went back over to the elevator and rode the car the rest of the way up to the penthouse—

Where he found half of his team and Wilson sitting around the TV, Wilson and Thor in the middle of a heated game of…whatever…while Bruce and Natasha cheered them on.

"OK, again," he said and moved over to where they sat, "this is _not_ an episode of _Friends_."

"Oh, don't be like that, Tony," Bruce said, not taking his eyes off the screen. "Deep down in that shriveled heart of yours, you know you enjoy it."

"Indeed," Thor said and jerked the controller as he completed a particular move, much to the annoyance of Wilson and Natasha, who was evidently on his team. "If you did not wish us to make ourselves at home in your abode, you would not stock your pantry with all of our favorite delicacies."

"I don't do that," he muttered. "JARVIS does."

"You could always tell JARVIS to stop it," Natasha said then directed Wilson to pull a certain move in particular, which got a smile and an "Oh, yeah! Suck it, Goldie!" out of him as he completed whatever maneuver it was.

Tony just thinned his lips but didn't say anything, and Bruce pulled his attention away from the game and said, "Where's Steve?"

Tony exhaled a breath through his nose. "Dead in a ditch, for all I care," he muttered and turned on his heel to go upstairs.

The sounds of the game cut out, presumably having been paused, and Bruce said, "Uh, what?"

"Nothing," Tony said with a sigh. "Look, I just drove three-and-a-half hours straight. I'm tired, and I'm going to bed." He waved an airy hand in their direction. "Keep on…keeping on. Whatever. I don't care. Goodnight."

"Tony, what happened to your wrist?" Bruce asked, but Tony just reiterated a 'goodnight' and continued up the steps to his bedroom.

He went in and closed the door behind him, and he dropped the bag on the floor and felt another upheaval of tears. He put a hand to his abdomen and took several deep breaths to try and stop them, but it became too much, and he choked out a sob and let the tears flow once again.

He pulled out a clean pair of pajamas and shucked off his clothes to change into them, and he tossed his clothes with his bag and sat down on the bed to curl up on his side. Jesus fuck, he was so sick of crying. Sometimes it felt like that's all he did nowadays, and he was tired of it. He was tired of everything. He just wanted to go back in time and stop all of this from happening. Maybe even stop—

Stop himself from asking Steve out.

Because it hurt. It hurt so much. He thought he could trust Steve. He thought Steve would be different. Steve would love him and Steve would take care of him. Steve wasn't just with him to kill some time. And he'd believed it. JARVIS was right in that Steve wasn't so great with the vocalizing how he felt, but he liked to show it, and Tony had thought he'd shown it quite well over the past couple years. Because Tony had believed him when Steve had kissed him and Steve had made love to him and Steve had nagged at him to eat or to get some rest or to not pull so many stupid maneuvers in the field — which was the height of hypocrisy for Steve, whose stupid maneuvers outnumbered the rest of the team's put together.

He pressed his face into the pillow, soaking it with tears, until he heard a knock at his door, and he sniffled and wiped the tears away and tried to hide the evidence of what he'd done. He got up, struggling a little bit more than he'd like to admit, and went over to the door, and he turned the handle and schooled his face into something blasé and neutral as he spotted Natasha on the other side of it, a tub of chocolate caramel gelato in one hand and a spoon in the other. She held it out to him without a word, and he looked at it a moment before he reached out and took both items, and she took that as permission to enter.

She crossed the threshold and closed the door behind her, and Tony dug his spoon into the gelato, grimacing as a sharp pain went through his wrist as he did so, and he muttered a swear under his breath before Natasha said, "What happened?"

"Nothing. Turned the spoon the wrong way—"

She folded her arms and stared him down. "With Steve."

He glanced up from the gelato, and though she tried to look impassive, he saw actual concern lining her green irises. He raked his gaze over her face before he went and sat down on the bed, setting the tub of gelato down on the mattress so he could dig at it with his left hand.

"Nothing," he muttered.

She advanced on him slowly but didn't drop her arms. "Doesn't look like it's nothing. You just said he could be dead in a ditch for all you cared. That's quite a change in attitude since Friday."

"Look, does it matter?" he asked and dug out the first spoonful. He shoved it into his mouth, his taste buds savoring the creamy chocolate and caramel flavors as he added, "I was kidding myself with this whole thing, anyway. I'm not Peggy, I'm not Howard, and I'm not _Bucky_." He didn't mean to practically spit out the last one, but he did, and it felt oh-so-good to do so.

Natasha just blinked at him, and she pursed her lips a little and sat down beside him. "What happened, Tony?" she asked and rubbed his shoulders some, as though she was trying to ease out the tension and turn him into easily-manipulated putty.

"I told you. It doesn't matter." He dug the spoon in and shoveled another taste into his mouth. "He was only with me until he could get his old life back. Well, Howard's dead, and Peggy's in a nursing home with dementia, but _Bucky's_ still here." He jabbed the gelato with his spoon. "Good, ol' _Bucky_. His old pal, _Bucky_. The one he'll charge headlong into a ball of fire for."

He shifted a little to allow for Natasha to work at a particularly tensed knot in his back, and she followed, her fingers digging in and massaging at the right pressure.

"Not that I'm sure this is any news to you, but, as it turns out, this is also the same _Bucky_ that killed my parents."

Her fingers faltered only a moment before she was back to massaging in a gentle and soothing rhythm.

"Yeah, that's what I thought." He stabbed the gelato again and shoved another spoonful in his mouth.

"It wasn't Barnes that—" she started to say, but Tony groaned.

"Oh, don't give me that bullshit! Steve tried the same thing. _Bucky_ didn't do it, the Winter Soldier did. Newsflash: _Bucky_ is the Winter Soldier."

"Tony, he was brainwashed," she said, her voice soothing and even. "You can't hold that against him—"

"The fuck I can't. He spent seventy goddamned years as the Winter Soldier. Steve seems to think he can go right on back to being _Bucky_ , but he spent more of his life as an assassin than he ever did as some schmuck from Brooklyn. And did I mention that he _murdered_ my parents?"

Natasha remained silent but kept up the pressure on his back as she kneaded her fingers in.

"And yet," she murmured quietly, "I don't see you going to any federal investigators with this information."

"Maybe I just didn't think of it yet."

"Maybe. Or maybe deep down you know he wasn't the one that did it. You know he was just as much a victim of circumstance as anyone."

"No, pretty sure I know he—"

"Hydra killed your parents, Tony, not Barnes. Barnes pulled the trigger, but Hydra was the one pulling his strings. They're the enemy here, not Barnes. Deep down, you know that. What you're upset about is even more personal than that. You're afraid if Barnes comes back into Steve's life, you're going to lose Steve to him. You're afraid you won't be the most important person in Steve's life any longer. I can't even say that's probably hormones talking because I think we'd still be having this same problem even without your…current situation. Only, in that case, you'd probably be down in your lab blowing yourself or the building up instead of crying into a tub of gelato."

"I'm not crying into a tub of gelato," he muttered and stabbed the spoon into the creamy, frozen custard mixture again, which got an actual laugh out of Natasha.

"No, honey, of course you're not. You're brooding manfully into it."

"OK, you know what—" He moaned as she worked her thumbs into a particularly nasty knot in his back. " _Fuck_ , where did you learn how to do that?"

Natasha remained silent on that, and Tony let her fingers work their magic as they trailed up to his neck. He let his head dip forward some, and as she kneaded her fingers in, he muttered, "I look like Peggy."

"Hmm?"

"Like this. I look— It's superficial, but I look like Peggy. The first love. The one that got away. With me like this, he gets to have…he gets to get what he thought he lost."

Natasha was quiet a moment before she said, "That's not true."

"Isn't it?"

"No. That would only have any weight to it if he suddenly found you attractive _after_ you'd been turned into a woman. He was with you for well over a year before that, and trust me, he found you _very_ attractive in your male form."

She paused in thought a moment, her hands stilling like she was trying to thinking of what next to say.

"Steve is… _terrible_...at communicating his feelings," she eventually murmured, her fingers starting up again. "I'm sure if they had awards for those sorts of things, he'd sweep the competition every year. He needs to make things right with Barnes. He failed him once; he can't allow himself to fail him again. But he needs you by his side to do it. He doesn't just want you to support him, he _needs_ you to support him. He needs to make things right with Barnes, but he needs _you_ point- blank. He's just as freaked out about this whole thing as you are, but he suppresses it, keeps it hidden, so that you can have your mini-meltdowns over it. Because while he's freaked out about it, he knows it's nothing compared to what you're going through, and he doesn't… He blames himself for this. He'll never _not_ blame himself for it. But he thinks he's done right by you, or is _doing right_ by you. He's watching out for you, taking care of you, and he's probably read more about pregnancy in the past couple months than you have in your entire life."

He shrugged some and dragged the tip of his spoon through the melting tub of gelato. "Only ever worried about how to prevent it, to be honest."

Natasha couldn't help but snort a laugh at that.

"Yeah, laugh it up. It was only from the point of view of how to not get someone else pregnant, not get pregnant myself."

She stopped massaging his neck and instead put her hands on his shoulders. "It's all right. You didn't know any better."

"Why do I sense sarcasm?"

She laughed and patted his shoulders. "You two really are idiots, but we love you anyway."

"Thanks," he muttered and stuck another spoonful of gelato in his mouth. She just leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

"Steve is an idiot, but he loves you madly. Get some sleep, _solnyshko_. You'll feel better in the morning, I promise."

He shrugged. "What's the point? Steve—"

"—is an idiot that doesn't know how to express his feelings." She paused a moment then reached out and took a gentle hold of his right wrist. "How did he do this?"

"Who says—?"

" _Tony_."

He heaved out a sigh. "When we were arguing on the side of the road — when he decided to stay with _Bucky_ instead of come home with me — I, um, went to get in the car, and he grabbed me. I think he was trying to stop me, but he forgot his strength."

"He does that sometimes," Natasha murmured like she was thinking of something in particular but didn't elaborate on it.

"He didn't mean it. You know he didn't mean it, right?"

Christ, wasn't that the defense of every person ever in an abusive relationship? He…really didn't want to travel down that road.

"It looks like it hurts," she said and turned his wrist over to inspect it more fully, but he shrugged.

"No biggie. JARVIS already ran a scan. Surface bruising. It'll heal."

Natasha thinned her lips as she looked over his wrist and then set it back down. "Does he know he did it?"

"He knew he grabbed too hard. He did seem surprised by it."

She nodded silently and stood up. Over his whines, she took the container of gelato and the spoon away from him and said, "Brush your teeth and go to bed," but there was an element of coldness in her voice that hadn't been there a few moments before, and Tony knew it wasn't directed at him.

"He really didn't mean to do it, Nat. Honest."

She just looked at him and nodded once like she was taking his comments into consideration and would weigh them with the evidence she'd collected, but she nodded her head toward the bed and said, "Sleep. I mean it. You're overtired, and you're not thinking straight. Have you heard from Steve since you left him— Incidentally, where did you leave him?"

"I don't know. Side of the highway in some godforsaken part of the state up by the Finger Lakes. There was a former SHIELD safe-house—"

"Yeah," she said like she was familiar with the place. "Have you heard from him?"

He shrugged and picked at the duvet. "Tried to call me a few times. I wouldn't let JARVIS put him through."

She just nodded again and turned to make her way to the door. "Go to sleep. I'm going to have JARVIS monitor you to make sure that you do. Don't make me have to come back here." She turned back to him and smiled knowingly. "You won't like it if I do."

He smiled in thanks and appreciation, and she turned and left, closing the door behind her, and Tony got up from the bed and went into the bathroom to pee and brush his teeth.

Hey, he'd finally gotten that promised massage after all. Just…not from the person he'd wanted to get it from.

He was standing in front of the mirror, rinsing his mouth out, when he remembered why he and Steve had even gotten out of the city in the first place, and he frowned and shut the light off and went back downstairs to ask Natasha if it had blown over, only to see that both she and Wilson had left, and only Bruce and Thor remained, talking quietly, Bruce's face pinched in concern while Thor sat looking somber and contemplative. They both looked up as Tony approached, and Bruce smiled some and said, "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"

"Aren't you supposed to be on your own floor?" he muttered in response and sat down on the couch. "Where'd the other two go?"

Bruce and Thor exchanged glances, and Tony rolled his eyes at their lack of subtlety. "Good job hiding it from me, guys. I take it they've gone to track down my wayward husband."

"Tony, go to bed," was all Bruce said.

"Whatever," he muttered and grabbed the remote and turned the TV on. "Hey, so, question," he said and flipped onto one of the news networks, "Steve and I still the news _du jour_ or did they move onto something else?"

"Nah, you were in luck," Bruce said. "Congressman had a sex scandal, so you guys got bumped. They're still talking about you, but not as much."

Sure enough, the news station was playing the usual footage of some congressman walking through corridors while the host and guests debated over what this meant for any charges he might face and what his political future as well as the party's might be.

"Have they said much about us today?" he asked as he put the sound down low and just read the chyron at the bottom of the screen.

"A little," Bruce conceded. "Doesn't appear anyone's thought to actually check the clerk's office for a marriage license, and if they have, evidently the one they found doesn't match up with their narrative, so they don't know what to do with it."

"Steve and I still horrible people that had no business being in a relationship together?"

" _Tony_ ," Bruce murmured while Thor frowned at the characterization.

"I do not understand," he said. "I consider you to be among the truest of partnerships I have seen amongst the nine realms. Even the Goddess Esmeralda senses the bond that you share and feels it to be among the strongest she has ever made acquaintance with." He smiled a little. "The current misunderstanding between you and the Captain aside."

"Didn't read the news, did you?"

"I thought it prudent to avoid such lies and falsehoods," Thor replied earnestly.

Tony smiled and reached out to smack his arm. "That's why I love you, big guy." He sighed and relaxed into the couch and said, "For the record, I can guess that Nat and Wilson have gone to drag Steve back here, but to be honest, really don't want to see his mug at the moment."

Bruce just smiled and said, "Go to bed, Tony."

He folded his arms and pouted. "My penthouse."

"You're like a child sometimes," Bruce muttered. "Steve isn't here, and I can't carry you up the stairs, so, Thor, if you'd do the honors?"

Thor got up and made to scoop Tony up, and he cried out and threw a leg and then an arm out to block him and squawked a bit about feeling violated or threatened or something, and Thor stood back in slight bemusement while Bruce just stared at him pointedly and said, "Would you go to bed?"

He looked between the two of them, and he huffed and stood up, letting Thor help him through the struggle that was only going to get worse over the next couple months. He muttered about something being bullshit — nothing in particular, just felt the need to make the comment — and stumbled over to the steps, grumbling about fine, he'd go to bed, but it wasn't like he was tired, and they fussed more than Steve did on his worst day.

"Good _night_ , Tony," Bruce said, and Tony flipped him off before he got to the top of the steps and went over to his bedroom. He lay down on the bed, curling up on his side, Steve's pillow tucked between his legs, and closed his eyes.

He totally did not fall asleep within five minutes.


	18. Chapter 18

* * *

He didn't know how many times Steve tried to contact him after that. He only knew Steve _did_ try to contact him because JARVIS made sure to let him know every time Steve tried to initiate contact with him.

Which was actually quite a lot, if he was being honest with himself.

He told JARVIS to tell Steve to go fuck himself every time he did. He didn't know that JARVIS actually did — actually, he very much doubted he did — but at least he'd given the order for him to.

He holed himself up in his lab and worked on various projects he'd let go over the past couple months. Or he tried to, at any rate. His concentration was a bit lacking, as was his strength reserves — and his wrist still hurt him a bit, but not as much as he thought it should — and, more often than not, he spent the time on the couch, staring at the TV screen ahead of him. At one point, he'd gotten stuck at the classic movie channel and was either too lazy or too down to tell JARVIS to change it. Which mean he suffered through an afternoon of melodramas that had him reluctantly bawling his eyes out. (Hormones. Always and forever blame hormones.) There was the one with the blue-collar girl that got married to the blue-blood, only to end up divorced and pregnant when the family didn't approve of the match. She resolved to keep the baby even with no husband in the picture, but the baby died at birth. Then there was the one about the couple that was getting divorced, and the wife was going through their record collection and recalling fonder times. That one not only featured a miscarriage but an adopted child that ended up dying of some mysterious illness.

He yelled at JARVIS to change the station before the movie ended. He knew these particular movies being played at this precise moment was just a coincidence, but it was a hell of a coincidence considering. As, he was sure, was the fact that the channel JARVIS changed it to was showing _Rosemary's Baby_ , of all things.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" he yelled up at the ceiling. The _last_ thing he needed was to watch anything that would put any sort of doubt into his head that this was anything but the spawn of a super soldier from the '40s. He did _not_ want to even begin to wonder if there was something more nefarious — or demonic — about this child, especially given the…unique circumstances of its conception.

OK, he really didn't see Steve as the type to make a pact with any kind of religious cult — not even for _Bucky's_ sake—

Wait.

Oh, god. Wait— No. No, that wasn't possible, right? Steve wouldn't make some crazy pact with some religious cult just so he could get Bucky back, right? And he sure as fuck wouldn't stick _Tony_ in the middle of it, would he? Sure, Steve had been desperate to get his friend back, and he'd gone to extreme lengths for him, and he'd ultimately chosen Bucky over him, but he wouldn't actually…

Though Barnes _did_ show up miraculously out-of-the-blue almost like he'd been summoned...

He didn't know how long he sat there watching it, his gaze, for whatever reason, fixated on the screen. Close to the whole movie, probably, as he only realized he was still watching it just as the on-screen Rosemary grabbed a knife from the kitchen. And it was only then that he realized he'd been sitting there rubbing his belly for almost the entire movie, like he was either trying to assure himself or the little creature that grew inside of him that that was a movie and this was real life, and there was nothing strange our out-of-the-ordinary about this baby. There was nothing otherworldly or demonic about it. No red eyes. No cloven hooves. Its father was a stubborn, sanctimonious pain-in-the-ass named Steven G. Rogers, who just happened to be the world-famous Captain America. The only 'weird' thing about this child was that its father had been presumed dead for seventy years and its mother had been changed from a man into a woman to allow for its conception. He hadn't been craving raw meat, and he hadn't had any horrible, unexplained abdominal pains, and he had never 'dreamt' about anyone but Steve fucking him.

Well, except that one dream, but that didn't count, as even in the dream, Steve was quite clearly the father. And even in the week that it could have even happened, he could say with absolute certainty Steve was the only one that had been inside of him.

Right?

Holy shit, what if— What if Esmeralda wasn't an agent of Hydra? What if she was an agent of something even worse?

As Rosemary made her way down the hallway, knife at the ready, Tony looked down at his belly, and he swallowed and rubbed his hand over the swell some more and said, " _Please_ don't be the spawn of Satan." A year ago, he would have laughed at the very idea of Satan himself actually existing. Now, he didn't know _what_ to believe.

God, he hoped this baby was completely one hundred percent Steve's. Fucking movies. Fucking stupid movies.

He couldn't honestly say how long he spent down in his lab. No one came to bother him, and he didn't inquire as to the whereabouts of anyone else in the Tower. Could have been six hours; could have been six days for all he knew. He resolved not to think about his asshole husband and the murderer he called a best friend, but he couldn't _not_ think about Steve. It was because of Steve that he was even like _this_ to begin with — pregnant, female, heartbroken. He'd still have this baby. He didn't have a choice. But now, he was starting to wonder if it wouldn't be better — and safer — for everyone involved if he put the baby up for adoption. Keeping him would be putting a huge bull's-eye on his head, and Steve was right when he'd said back in the winter that Avengers Tower was the last place to raise a child, Tony's two-day adventure as a father to an alternate-universe daughter aside. He could have the record sealed so that no one could open it and, thus, no one could trace the adoption back to him. Or whatever assumed name he would use to formalize the adoption. He'd make sure the baby went to parents that would love him and cherish him and treat him with all the courtesy and respect he warranted, and he'd set up a trust so that he would have all the funding he could ever hope for to pay for the education he so richly deserved. He'd make sure that Hydra in particular couldn't trace the child back to him and Steve, ensure that Hydra kept their tentacles off of him, make sure their kid had the happy and loving and _secure_ childhood that had seemed to elude both of them in some way.

It wasn't ideal, no, and it wasn't what he wanted (god help him — as it turned out, he _did_ want this baby), but it was what had to be. Steve had made his choice, and he'd chosen his old pal over his own fucking husband— wife— whatever the fuck Tony technically was. Tony didn't think he could do this alone, and, to be honest, he didn't want Barnes knowing _anything_ about his child. He didn't want him to have any information that he could somehow use against them. Barnes had murdered his parents. What was to stop him from doing the same to his child?

And wouldn't _that_ be perfectly fitting?

But then, maybe he wasn't being fair. The Barnes that had done that _had_ been under Hydra's control, and even though there was no way to know for sure that he wasn't _still_ under Hydra's control, he supposed he had to give the poor bastard the benefit of the doubt. He'd had untold numbers of occasions to murder both him and Steve over the course of the weekend, and so far as Tony knew, he hadn't tried a damned thing. Maybe he just wasn't programmed to go 'off' just yet, but he was pretty sure that wasn't how Hydra worked. Or it wasn't how they'd used the Winter Soldier, anyway. He was a brainwashed assassin with very little autonomy, not a sleeper agent. Or he didn't think he was a sleeper agent. Maybe he was? Maybe he was programmed so that, if he ever fell into SHIELD's or the Avengers' hands, he would wait until he was insulated in their confidence and then—

OK, maybe not a road to go down, not if his logical mind wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. Did he wonder if Barton was still somehow under Loki's control? No, not unless being an annoying pain-in-the-ass was part of still being under Loki's control, which, well, knowing Loki, was maybe not something to put past him (yeah, no, that screwball was not anywhere near as 'dead' as Thor claimed he was, he was sure of it). But, no, it had been two years and no incidents, so Barton was probably fine. He knew he couldn't use that to apply to Barnes's situation, but if he wanted to sleep at night, he sure did.

Honestly, what he needed to do was talk to Steve, but, at the same time, the last person he wanted to see right then was Steve. Steve had promised him the world and then only a few hours later had made his choice on who he was siding with, and it wasn't Tony. OK, maybe driving away like he had had been a _stupid_ choice, but he was pretty sure he could blame hormones for it. He _had_ just been informed that the man he was supposed to be putting up at his place was the man that had murdered his parents — his _mother_ — twenty years earlier. He thought he was allowed _some_ amount of a freak out.

But he hadn't been fair to Steve about it, even if Steve hadn't handled the situation any better. Sometimes he didn't understand how he and Steve were supposed to be 'soul mates.' They bickered, argued, and talked past each other more than most. Shouldn't true soul mates agree on almost everything and never once raise their voices to one another? Being with Steve was sometimes a contest to see which one of them could shout louder than the other. It was fun, but it was loud.

So, no, he didn't know how long he was down in the lab. Food seemed to appear whenever he realized he was hungry, and he had a bathroom down there to clean up in when the occasion called for it, but for all he knew, he'd been down there a week straight working on stuff when JARVIS intoned from on high, " _Sir, I have been asked to relay to you that your presence is requested in the penthouse_."

He groaned and rolled his eyes, and he tossed the arrows that he was working on for Barton onto the table. "Goddamn it, we are not on _Friends_! I put in a common floor for them!" he cried. "Is it important, J?"

" _It appears so, Sir_."

He grumbled a bit and pushed away from his workstation. "Save it, but don't close it. I'm not staying up there for very long, and make sure they know that. If it's just because they need me to settle another Thai versus Vietnamese debate, the answer is neither. It's Italian. It's always Italian."

" _I shall endeavor to ensure that they are aware of this the next time it is brought up_."

He sighed and left the lab, and he took the elevator up to the penthouse and took a deep breath to steel himself for whatever stupidity his friends had gotten themselves into this time. Probably Natasha had Wilson in a headlock and wouldn't let go or Thor had put his hammer on Barton's chest and was refusing to take it off. That second was _totally_ not a bad innuendo of some kind and had actually, literally happened once before. Tony had actually thought it was kind of funny and deserved; Steve had been the killjoy to level Thor with his Stare of Disapproval and guilt him into removing the hammer.

The elevator doors opened, and Tony stepped out into a dream. There were sprays of flowers decorating the room and candles of various sizes and shapes giving light to the darkness. Over by one of the floor-to-ceiling plate windows was a small table set for two, and beside it stood a nervous super soldier in a well-fitted navy blue suit, who was clearly trying to exude an aura of confidence and calm but had that look on his face like he wasn't quite sure he had done right.

Tony noticed a song playing, the first song they'd ever danced to down in his lab — his workshop back then — when he'd taught Steve how to dance. He stopped halfway between the elevator and the table and took a good look around, and he opened his mouth to ask Steve just what in the world all this was for when Steve took his hand and pulled him into his arms.

"Steve, what the—"

But Steve just shushed him and said, "Just dance," as he began to sway with him to the gentle rhythm. Tony put his arm around Steve's shoulders and reached up to press a cheek to his, and he closed his eyes and let the mood overtake him, forgetting for a moment that he was both angry and upset with the man holding him in his arms.

"Steve, why—"

Again, Steve shushed him and moved his head to press a kiss to one sweaty, grease-stained shoulder.

"You know, I'm really not dressed for this."

"Doesn't matter."

"I kind of smell funny."

"You smell fine."

"That'd better be Italian. I'm craving Italian like you wouldn't believe."

"Sorry, you're stuck with the Irish kid from Brooklyn."

He swatted at his shoulder. "Head out of the gutter, Captain. I meant Italian _food_. Jesus Christ, I swear, you do it on purpose. Make like a choirboy in public so when I try to educate people on the sex-obsessed, dirty old man that you are, no one believes me."

"No, I mean it," he murmured, his lips just brushing Tony's shoulder and his breath ghosting over his skin. "Irish food with the Irish kid."

"The hell you went to all this trouble for boiled potatoes and corned beef. And don't give me any of that shit about it being the food of your people. You're from Brooklyn. The food of your people is egg creams and hotdogs. And you bullshit you meant 'food'—"

" _Tony_ ," he murmured then shushed him again. "Just dance."

He clamped his mouth shut and swayed to the rhythm, letting Steve take the lead as he was wont to do. Steve brought his mouth up from Tony's shoulder and pressed another kiss first to his jaw and then to his cheek then rubbed his cheek against Tony's and tightened his embrace just the faintest amount.

They swayed a few quiet minutes, Tony with his eyes closed as he let the rhythm and the music take him back to a happier time, but he was never one to leave well-enough alone, and he murmured, "Is this you trying to say you're sorry?"

Steve hummed a bit in thought before he said, "That's part of it."

"And what might the other part or parts be?"

"Shh… Dance, Tony."

Steve tightened the hand he had at Tony's waist, pressing it more firmly into Tony's lower back, more possessively, and Tony's eyes shot open at the motion.

"Steve."

"Hmm?"

"Steve."

"Hmm?"

Tony let go of Steve's hand to press against Steve's shoulders and push away from him. Steve frowned and let him go, and Tony shook his head and said, "No. Nuh uh. You can't just… Look, I get that you're shit at actually expressing your emotions, but if this is because Nat tracked you down and made some very scary threats to you—"

"She didn't say anything I didn't already know."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "So, she did have to track you down and drag you back."

"Tony, it's not like that—"

Tony pulled away from him. "J, cut the music!"

The music, which had moved onto another song by this point, cut out, and all that remained was silence outside of the very faint flicker of flames.

"Look at me, Steve. Look at me and tell me that you would still be right here right now even if Nat hadn't gone and made some very scary threats to you."

Steve was quiet a moment before he said, "Tony, that's not—"

"Yep. That's about what I thought. We're done here."

He went to make his way back to the elevator, but Steve ran ahead of him and cut him off, blocking his access.

"Steve," he said as Steve braced an arm over the door, "let me go."

"Just hear me out."

"Stop trying to block my escape, and I might."

Steve glanced to where he had his arm blocking access to the elevator, and he frowned and dropped before he scratched at his forehead.

"Look, Tony—"

"Thirty seconds."

Steve looked up at him, panic-stricken. "Tony, that's not—"

"Twenty-five seconds."

"You're not really being—"

"Twenty seconds."

Steve went to reach out to touch him but then pulled back at the last second like he had thought better of it. "You didn't give me a chance to—"

"Fifteen seconds. You're wasting your time."

"If you'd _stop_ interrupting me when I'm trying to—"

"Ten seconds."

"Like that! There you go again. I almost think you don't want me to—"

"Five seconds. Running out of time there, Cap."

"Oh, so we're back to 'Cap' now, are we?"

"And we're done here."

He pressed the button for the elevator, and the doors opened immediately. Evidently, JARVIS was on his side in this.

"Tony, please, don't—"

He took two steps on but then spun around and stepped right back off.

"You don't get it, Steve, do you?" he said and began to crowd into Steve's space, forcing Steve to back away from him. "You really don't. You think all you have to do is not get yelled at by Natasha and then come back here and throw some flowers and candles and food at me, and everything'll be hunky dory. Well, guess what? That's not the way it works. I'm not even going to get into you almost breaking my wrist—"

Steve looked physically pained by that. "Honey, I'm so sorry—"

"I'm not through talking yet, Steve! I'm not even going to bring up what you did to my wrist. But tell me, Steve. Tell me I'm not just a replacement. Tell me you're not seeing some cheap, fucking replacement for Howard or Peggy or _Bucky_ when you see me. You can't, can you?"

"Tony, where is this coming from? Where are you getting this? Did someone say something—"

"No one has to say anything. It's pretty obvious. I'm the life you're stuck with. I'm the person you're stuck with because the one you wanted — the people you wanted — were all taken from you, and now you've got to make do with what you've got. Which clearly isn't worth shit based on the fact of how easily you can walk away from me."

"You _left me_ on the side of the road, Tony. You got in the car and drove away."

"You wouldn't have gotten in. Or, if you did, you would have brought _Bucky_ along with you—"

"Can you not say his name so sarcastically?"

"Why? Does it bother you? Does it offend you when I do that? Oh, I wouldn't want to hurt your feelings, Steve. You are going through quite the trying time here."

Steve just glared at him and said, "You know, maybe this was a bad idea."

"What? You and me? Yeah, I've kind of come to that realization, too."

Steve's face blanched, and it looked like the wind had completely gone out of his sails, his eyes gone wide and his mouth dropped open in surprise.

"I— I meant _this_. Trying to talk to you like this. I thought… I thought it would be—"

"Romantic? Yeah, maybe in some other time and place it would have been."

"Tony, please, look," Steve said, and a worried and desperate look had come over his face. "I— I didn't mean _that_. I didn't mean _us_ , that _we_ were a bad idea. I just meant—"

But Tony just sighed and said, "Honestly, Steve, I'm tired, and I... I think it's time we face the facts here."

"What facts?"

Tony swallowed. He didn't want to say it, he didn't want to mean it, but it seemed there was no other alternative. Not now. Not anymore. Not after all this.

"You don't love me the way I love you."

Steve took a step closer but didn't touch him. "That's not true."

"Isn't it? I mean, why would you love me? What have I ever done to earn anyone's love? Fuck, my own father couldn't be bothered with me—"

Steve crowded fully into his space at that. "I could strangle that man for ever putting that doubt in your head. You are…amazing. You're absolutely amazing. You're intelligent and funny and you give so much and you love so much. And you're gorgeous. You're absolutely gorgeous."

He put his hands on Tony's shoulders and pulled him into his space, leaning down to brush his lips against Tony's temple then his forehead, cheeks, nose, and finally mouth. Tony stood there like a stone statue and allowed him, swallowing to keep his composure, keeping his eyes open and staring ahead at the wall to keep from melting into it.

"Tony, please," Steve said, voice just above a whisper. "Don't believe that. You can't believe that."

"But it's true," he said and swallowed again as he blinked the tears out of his eyes. "It's true. Maybe you love me, but you don't love me the way I love you. You're… And I'm the one you had to settle for."

Steve pulled away from him, still holding him by the shoulders, and he shook him a little to get him to look up at him. Tony did and saw anger and hurt and confusion staring back at him, Steve's gaze raking over his face like he was trying to find evidence that Tony was joking or wasn't fully serious about what he'd just said.

"You—? Why—? _Don't_ ," he finally said, crystalline blue eyes boring into his. "Don't _ever_ — Settle? You think I _settled_ for you? You think I married you because I had no other choice?"

Tony just shrugged. When he said it like that, it did sound pretty fucking stupid. To think Steve had no other choice but _him_. Jesus.

"Listen, you crazy, crazy man—" He let go of Tony's shoulders and cradled Tony's face in his hands, one hand delicately cupping either side of his jaw, his fingers curled behind his ears and his thumbs brushing Tony's cheekbones. "I— If I had to do it all over again — if Loki or some other crackpot sent me back in time tomorrow and gave me the choice to either crash that plane and spend seventy years in the ice or stay and live out the rest of my days in the era I thought I was supposed to, I'd climb right back into that plane without a backwards glance. _Not_ because of Bucky. Not because I'd see Bucky again. But _you_. Because _you_ would be there at the end of it. You, with your bad habits and your loud music and your absolutely neurotic way of looking at the world. Because I could stay, and I could marry Peggy, and I could settle down with her and have a family with her, and maybe I'd be happy. I don't know. What I thought was happiness then isn't what I know happiness is now. But I wouldn't… And you wouldn't be…"

He tilted Tony's head up just the slightest and brought his mouth down to Tony's, hard, fast, possessive, like he was a man drowning and kissing Tony was the only way he could get air. Tony startled a bit and tried to pull back, but he was sick of arguing, and he was sick of fighting, and he just wanted to be _happy_ , and he just wanted things with Steve to go back to the way they were.

So, he kissed back, all tongue and teeth and saliva, and put gentle hands to Steve's narrow waist, and he kissed Steve until his lips hurt and his jaw started to ache, and he pulled his mouth away only for Steve to take him by the shoulders and pull him into his arms. He turned a little to allow for the best means of folding into Steve's embrace with his belly sticking out, and as he put his arms around Steve's waist, Steve put his mouth by his ear and murmured, "You're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and if I had to, I'd burn the universe to get you back again."

"Not sure you should do that," he said and closed his eyes as he tucked his head into the crook of Steve's neck. "I mean, if you burn the universe, where would we live?"

"We'd find a place."

"Have a plan for everything, don't you?"

"Don't call me 'the man with the plan' for nothing." He nudged Tony some and said, "Look, supper's getting cold, and I went to a lot of trouble to get JARVIS to order it up for me, especially considering that I could tell he was kind of mad at me."

"Yeah, well…" Tony said but offered nothing substantial beyond that.

"So, look, how 'bout we eat, OK? I know it's not… I know it won't fix everything. I know you still feel…" He tightened his arms some and rubbed his hands over Tony's back. "I do love you. I'm not good at saying it. I know that. But I do love you, and I'd do anything for you, and if it means letting go of Bucky—"

" _No_ ," he said quickly.

"No?"

He pulled away from him. "No, Steve, I don't want you to let go of… I know he's your friend. I know you think you failed him once before. I know you feel like you have a chance to make it right again. I'm not that much of an asshole that I don't want you to have other friends. I just… Maybe I just want to know that I'm almost as important to you as he is."

Steve just stared at him and he exhaled a breath and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I'm a real asshole, aren't I?"

"What?"

He shook his head a little and scuffed one polished shoe against the floor before he looked up at Tony. "You really think that, don't you? That you're not as important to me…"

He pulled his hands from his pockets and took Tony's hands in his.

"Bucky is my friend. He was there for me… He was always there when I needed him. He was always there to pull me out of the fire. The one time he needed me to pull him out, I couldn't. I failed him. I couldn't watch out for him the way he'd watched out for me.

"This whole thing — this Winter Soldier thing — that's all on me. It's 'cause I didn't save him. I didn't pull him back in time."

"Steve, that's not—"

Steve just squeezed his hands to quiet him. "I have to make it right. I have to… I have to help make it right. He's not… I know he's not the same… I know he's different. I know he's had experiences I can never understand. I know he's had a life I'll never know about. I know… I know Nat's seen him in ways I never will."

"Nat?"

But Steve just kept talking. "The Winter Soldier killed your parents. Bucky didn't. Bucky would never… It was Hydra, Tony, and if it takes me until my dying day, I will root out every single Hydra cell and lay every single one of them to waste, to avenge Bucky, to avenge your parents, to avenge everyone whose lives they destroyed.

"But that doesn't mean that you aren't the absolute most important person in my life, and I swear on my life, I will make you believe that or die trying. Because it's the absolute truth. Because I've never met someone that could get under my skin the way you did from the moment I met them. I've never known someone that I could just share a look with and they'd understand every single thing I was thinking. I've never known someone that can read my mind the way that you can."

He went a little bashful for his next one, almost like it embarrassed him to say it.

"I've never met anyone that will fight me the way that you do and not give up. And I've never met anyone that I've _wanted_ to fight me the way you do. Because it makes me a better person. It makes me a better leader. Because…it's not that I believe my own hype, it's just sometimes I get a little…sure…of myself, and it's hard to admit that I'm not as _right_ about things as I think I am."

"Wait, did you just admit that you can be _wrong_ about things?"

He smiled a little. "I can admit when I'm wrong about things."

Tony scoffed. "Yeah, after exhausting every alternative and trying to find some way to be right on a technicality."

He shrugged. "Well, I'm not often wrong about stuff—"

"And people think _my_ ego couldn't get any bigger."

But Steve just considered Tony's hands in his, and he brushed his thumbs against Tony's fingers and said, "I know you don't believe in soul mates. I don't either — not, not in the way most people think of them. People talk about soul mates, they think it means someone that's just like you, someone that likes the same things that you do and thinks the same way that you do and sees the world exactly the same way that you do. If I ever had given thought to the idea when I was a kid, that's probably what I would have thought, too. But that's not a soul mate — not for me. I don't… I don't love you because you're exactly like me. You're not. I think we'd kill each other if we were exactly alike. But you balance me. You make me see things differently. You challenge me. You keep me on my toes. But you're my equal in everything. You're my balance, but you're my equal — if that makes any sense."

Tony shrugged some, but he squeezed Steve's hands as he did it. "A little, I guess. And that was corny as fuck, by the way. Yeah, go ahead and laugh. That was probably the corniest thing ever to come out of your mouth."

Steve quieted his laughs, but there was still the remains of a small smile on his face. "Yeah, but I mean it. You… You're my equal. You're my balance. I've never…I've never felt that before with anyone. I never even thought about it in those terms before. Seemed kind of hokey, actually. But with you…it's not so hokey."

"It's a little hokey, babe. But that's OK. I can live with it."

Steve swung their hands a little. "So…dinner?"

Tony glanced over to the table. "Is it Italian?"

"Of course."

He huffed out a breath and said, "Yeah, OK. I'll eat your stupid Italian."

Steve just smiled at him and brought his hands up to his mouth and pressed a kiss against his left set of knuckles and then his right, and Tony rolled his eyes at the gesture (that he did not secretly think was the sweetest thing ever) as Steve frowned and looked at the bruising on his right wrist — the bruising that had gone green and yellow. His face hardened a little, his jaw tense and his lips pursed, and he stared at the bruises a moment before he murmured a slightly self-hating, "Whoever did this to you should have his ass kicked."

"Yeah, I thought about it," he replied because, honestly, he had.

Steve looked up at him, meeting his eye, his gaze concerned. "Is it bad? Does it hurt?"

"No and no," Tony said.

But that wasn't enough for Steve, and he went sad-eyed and said, "Tony, I'm sorry. You know I never meant to—"

But Tony just waved him off and said. "Water under the bridge, babe. Don't worry about it. _However_ , you ever pull any shit like that again, _I_ will not only kick your ass, I'll get Rhodey and Pepper and Nat to help me. Capiche?"

Steve swallowed and nodded. "Loud and clear."

"Good." He took hold of Steve's hand and pulled him over to the table. "Now, come on. I'm fucking starving, and that smells delicious. J, crank up whatever sappy tunes the Cap asked you to play."

" _Of course, Sir_ ," JARVIS replied, and the music started up again, soft and quiet, almost more white noise than anything that could be completely discernible. Tony knew it was something old, which wasn't offensive in and of itself — Steve was old, and he loved him — but it was at least postwar. Steve had very gladly taken everyone's suggestions into consideration when trying to catch up on the popular culture of the last seventy years, and Steve was a music fan, but there were some things — OK, a _lot_ of things — that were just a bridge too far for him, and he was much more comfortable listening to the music of the era he'd come from or stuff recorded not long after.

And Motown. He seemed to like Motown.

Tony sat down at the table and snapped out his napkin, and he set it on his lap as he looked over the spread of food before him.

And nary a salad to be seen.

"I'm seeing a distinct lack of rabbit food here," he said and began to dig into the serving dishes. Ravioli and pasta carbonara and chicken parmesan.

"I'm an idiot," Steve said and began to serve himself, "but I'm not _that_ stupid."

"Yeah, well, jury's still out," Tony said and grabbed a breadstick. He caught Steve's eye then began to mouth the breadstick rather suggestively, dragging the tip of his tongue from one end to the other before swirling his tongue over the end and then taking it halfway into his mouth.

Steve just sat there and blinked, and he tilted his head in slight amusement and said, "You never want me to eat breadsticks again."

Tony took the breadstick out of his mouth. "Not without you thinking about me going down on you, anyway."

He shook his head some and cut into a ravioli. "Does this mean I'm forgiven?"

Tony shrugged and began to inspect the wine glass that sat to the side of his plate. "Maybe. Still thinking about it. Is this wine? You know I really shouldn't drink wine, right? Forget being pregnant, you do remember me saying I've been dry for well over a year, right?"

Steve shot him a pointed look. "Again, stupid, but not _that_ stupid."

"Hmph, whatever," he said and picked up the glass. He swirled it, sniffed it, then took a sip of it, his tongue picking up the distinct sweet flavor of—

"Sparkling grape juice. Really?"

Steve merely shrugged.

"Philistine," he muttered but took a gulp of the beverage. He set the glass down then cut into his chicken. He switched hands to shove the piece in his mouth, Steve watching him with a pointed smirk, and he rolled his eyes and said around the mouthful of food, " _What?_ "

"That woulda gotten you shot during the war. Trying to blend in, you'd out yourself as an American in one second flat."

He swallowed and said, "I _know_ European dining customs, OK? I wasn't raised in a barn. Are we currently _in_ Europe, though? No, we're in New York, where it is perfectly acceptable to cut and switch. Don't think you have one-up on me, old man. I was taking lessons in etiquette while you were taking your comfy ice nap."

They ate in silence for a few moments before Steve said, "You know, I really don't remember it."

"What?"

"The ice. Well, not too much."

Tony paused in mid-cut and looked at him. " _Too_ much? That implies you remember something."

Steve shrugged but kept his eyes on his plate as one soft ballad switched to another. "Mostly just impressions. I can't really recall anything definite, I don't think. Maybe I don't want to."

"I wouldn't think so," Tony said. "Fuck, that would be awful." He shivered at the thought.

Steve shrugged again but didn't say anything, and Tony watched him eat a moment before he said, "Do you remember going into the ice? Crashing the plane?"

He took a breath and exhaled it, his gaze boring into the flicker of candlelight on the table, and like he was recalling information from long ago, he said, "I remember…talking to Peggy. Making plans with her. We were gonna go to the Stork Club. It's not even around anymore. I remember telling her I didn't know how to dance. I don't… I don't recall the hit. I think I got thrown. I was lying down when they found me, I guess. Last I knew, I was sitting in the pilot's seat."

"I'm sorry," Tony murmured after a moment. "I didn't mean to—"

"Nah, it's fine," Steve said. "I don't mind telling you. It's just… I think about those things sometimes, and they feel like they're from a dream or from another life. It doesn't feel like it happened to me. In fact—" He set his fork down and sat back. "God, I don't know if I should even admit this to you. I never told this to anyone. But…once, not long after I woke up, I read something about amnesia and different ways it manifests, and I began to wonder if I hadn't made the whole thing up — the whole thing about the war and Project Rebirth and Peggy and Howard and Bucky and Colonel Phillips and the USO and — like maybe I'd seen a movie or read a book before I got whacked in the head, and now I was imagining this whole thing. And then you guys were all trying some sort of immersion therapy — playing into the delusion to try to bring me back to reality or something."

Tony didn't really want to deal with the horror that must have fed through Steve's veins as he worked to figure out what was real and what was imagined after he'd woken up, and so he went for the obvious joke.

"Was that before or after we watched _Shutter Island_? Doesn't that one guy look _exactly_ like Bruce?"

"Before," Steve replied, smiling in that way that said he knew Tony was deflecting from the hard truths of his tale. "But don't think it didn't rear its ugly head again after watching that."

"What made you realize it wasn't all some made-up fantasy?"

"There was too much evidence to the contrary. The photographs and the filmstrips and the history books."

"So, you didn't think you were in your very own _Truman Show_."

He shrugged. "Wasn't sure why anyone would care that much. I'm just a kid from Brooklyn. Nothing all that interesting about me."

Tony laughed. "Oh, babe, would that were true!"

"It kind of is."

"The hell it is! You're like a…giant ball of righteous fury with killer abs and an adorable smile that looks like a Greek statue come to life but acts like some cantankerous old man because they stopped selling your Postum."

"I never drank Postum!" he said like Tony had just uttered the most vicious lie about him. He went quiet a moment then added a little reluctantly, "My ma made me drink it a few times— but I never did it willingly! Some people used it as a coffee substitute during the war because coffee was rationed."

And then, because Steve Rogers was the most mature ninety-five-year-old in the history of mankind, he made the most over-the-top disgusted face Tony had ever seen on anyone.

"It does _not_ taste like coffee," he assured him, lest he be tempted to think one was a good substitute for the other. "I don't know what it tastes like, but it's not coffee."

"So, does this mean you won't make me drink it instead of coffee?"

"I'm not _that_ much of an asshole. I'd never wish that on anyone. However, I do wish you'd give some of Bruce's herbal teas a try—"

Tony just glared at him and shoved a bite of chicken in his mouth. He chewed in annoyance then said, "Twelve ounces a day, babe. Twelve ounces of coffee a day is A-OK—"

"A _day_ , not an _hour_ ," Steve murmured, but Tony ignored him.

"—so, in the immortal words of a vice president of the United States to a sitting Senator on the Senate floor, go fuck yourself."

Steve just frowned at him like he didn't understand the reference, and Tony rolled his eyes and said, "Well, there goes any jokes about that same vice president shooting an old man in the face and getting the old man to apologize for it."

Steve's eyes went wide in horror, and Tony said, "Yeah, it's probably a good thing you missed the early 2000s. I think that would have been a rough time for you. Though I would seriously have paid good money to see Dick Cheney tell Captain America to go fuck himself — and don't think he wouldn't've!"

He thought about that a moment and frowned.

"Now I'm a little disappointed you weren't around then. That would have been a fight for the ages."

Steve smiled a little and shook his head, and he turned his attention to the window beside him and gazed out it a moment before he said, "You know, sitting this high up, looking out the window, the music, the lights…kind of always what I pictured the Rainbow Room to be."

"The Rainbow Room?"

"Yeah," Steve said and poked at the food on his plate. "Kind of always wanted to go there. Never had the money…or a date."

"Well, we could," Tony said and cut off another bite of chicken parmesan. "They're doing some massive remodel to it. We could go when it reopens."

But Steve shrugged and looked at his plate, pushing a strand of spaghetti around with the tines of his fork. "Wouldn't be the same. I used to…listen to the radio broadcasts coming from all those clubs. Like the Café Rouge, which was in the Hotel Pennsylvania, or…what was the one in the New Yorker? The Terrace Room, I think."

"Nikola Tesla died there. In the hotel itself, I mean, not the club," Tony said.

"Did he? Think I remember when he died." He went quiet a moment then shrugged. "Anyway, it just… It wouldn't be the same going there now, I don't think."

He continued to push the spaghetti around his plate, and Tony watched him in quiet consideration a moment before he said, "I always thought it was just the people that you missed, but it's the places, too."

"It's… I don't know what it is, really. I mean I'm happy—" He looked up at Tony quickly. "Don't get me wrong! I'm happy here. With you and the team and…the future's _amazing_. The things Buck and I could only dream about when we were kids actually coming to life. But I just… I think it's because I didn't… It didn't go by slowly for me, you know? Naturally. It was there one minute and gone the next, and I think… Maybe it's just that I never got to say 'goodbye' to it. Yeah, I thought I was going to die when I put that plane down, but I thought that would be it. I didn't think I'd wake up seventy years in the future and just…be expected to pick up and start living again."

"They didn't try to get you to talk to anyone? Like a psychologist or something?" Tony asked as he continued eating. Hey, he was hungry, and the food was good.

Steve rolled his eyes and snorted a derisive laugh. "Head-shrinkers," he muttered.

"You just told them whatever they wanted to hear, didn't you?"

He shrugged but didn't deny.

"So…you made them think like everything was A-OK with you and nothing was wrong—"

"I'm not _crazy_ , Tony."

"I didn't say you were, but I sense a _little_ bit of resentment coming from you that you were just expected to get up and get back to what you were doing without being able to properly mourn what had been taken from you."

He stayed quiet a moment, and he set his fork down and sat back into his chair again. He turned his attention to the skyline beside them — the lights and the dark outlines and the sky hazy with cloud-cover — and he seemingly contemplated something a moment before he said, "I don't know what it is, to be honest. I mean, there's so many great things about the future — the vaccines and the food and the attitudes are a little more…open. You can get free transfers on the subway! All the lines are operated by the city now. Jesus, back then, you wanted to change lines, you had to pay because there were three different companies operating the lines. All the Els in Manhattan are gone — or most of them are. Trolleys don't exist. The little corner stores are pretty much wiped out. Costs an arm and a leg to live almost _anywhere_ in the city now—"

"Wait, I'm a little confused. Are these good things or bad things? Because you started out with good things, but your tone is telling me these aren't."

He inhaled a deep breath through his nose then exhaled it with a bit of a sigh. "They're just… things I've noticed. Things that happened when I was asleep. Other people got to watch these changes. I didn't. I just…woke up one day and had to accept that they'd happened."

"Would you go back? If given the chance—"

He frowned at him. "Tony, I already told you how I—"

"OK, take me out of the equation. Pretend I don't exist. You never met me. Howard never had a kid. If given the chance, would you go back?"

Steve sat quietly for a very long moment, like he was giving the matter serious consideration, before he finally said, "I don't know. Sometimes, I feel like…that's where I belong. I don't belong here. I'm not… I'm not from this time. I understand it, and I can get through it, but it's not… I don't belong here. I don't have the same experiences as the rest of you. I see things differently. I remember things — I _saw_ things — that are just pieces of history out of books to you guys."

And then he smiled a little, one of those sad and self-deprecating sorts, and said, "Sometimes I just feel old and useless."

Tony nodded his understanding. He set his fork down and put his hands on the edge of the table to push himself away, and he got up and went over to Steve, and he put a gentle hand to Steve's face and turned it to him.

"Oh, babe," he murmured. "You might be old, but you're _far_ from useless." He brushed his thumb over Steve's cheek and added, "You're the only one all of us can even be bothered to listen to."

Steve just raised a challenging eyebrow.

"Even me," he said. "I listen to you more than I've ever listened to anyone in my life. Ask Pepper. She's the next runner-up. But you? You're the only one that can corral this gang of idiots that calls themselves the Avengers. People believe in you. They _want_ to listen to you. They know Captain America won't lead them astray."

"Steve Rogers is pretty useless though, I take it?"

Tony rolled his eyes and playfully slapped at Steve's face. "You're such a pain in the— Steve Rogers is _far_ from useless. Steve Rogers is a sarcastic little shit that still thinks he's some asthmatic ninety-pound weakling trying to prove something to himself and the world."

Steve frowned. "That's not—"

"Honey, it's true. It's very, very true. You still think you're the underdog. You still think you have to prove that you're valuable to the world. Trust me, you're valuable. You're wanted, and you're needed. Look, I like Captain America as much as the next guy. He's awesome. But given a choice between him and Steve Rogers? I pick Steve Rogers every time."

Steve continued to frown. "But…aren't we the same person?"

Tony shrugged some and reached up to run gentle fingers through Steve's hair. It was shorter, softer. He must have had it cut since the last time he saw him. "Subtle differences. Steve Rogers can say sarcastic shit that Captain America could never get away with. Steve Rogers is allowed to have doubts. I don't think the Cap is."

"He does."

"Then he keeps them very well hidden. Steve Rogers doesn't hide his doubts nearly as well as he thinks he does."

Steve looked away from Tony at that but said nothing to it.

"I loved Captain America when I was a kid, even when I knew he was this ideal I could never live up to—"

"Tony, that's not—"

"—but now, as an adult, I'm _in_ love with Steve Rogers, and yeah, that means something. Because Captain America is righteous and courageous and mighty and strong and smart and perfect. Steve Rogers isn't. Steve Rogers has flaws — some that he'll never admit to himself. But Steve Rogers is a good man that only wants to do right by the people that he cares about. He makes mistakes, he has insecurities, and yeah, sometimes, he's a little old-fashioned. But he's sweet and he's caring and even if I think he'd rather get a root canal than say the actual words, I know he loves me."

"You just think he doesn't love you as much as you love him," Steve said, eyes flat and mouth pursed in a straight line.

But Tony just stroked his hair some more and said, "Sometimes I worry I'm not enough for him. I'm not enough to keep him happy."

"This Steve Rogers sounds like a terrible guy that doesn't realize how good he really has it. You should probably cut your losses while you can."

Tony shrugged. "What can I say? I love the guy. I'm just…not sure I—"

"He loves you. Trust me. He loves you."

Steve reached up and hugged gentle arms around him, and Tony pulled him closer so that Steve could nestle his head against him, in that awkward place on the side of his ribcage between his breast and his belly.

"He's absolutely _terrible_ at saying the words, and he knows that, but he loves you, and he needs you. He needs you more than he's ever needed anyone. And he feels like an absolute jerk for making you feel that way — like you're not enough for him or you're not good enough for him. Because the truth of the matter is he's afraid he's not enough for _you_ or good enough for _you_. You could have anyone in the world — you're intelligent and creative and talented and just so…so amazing — and you settle for some poor slob from a Brooklyn tenement that was only ever worth anything to anyone after he became a science experiment."

Tony smacked his shoulder. "Don't say that. Don't you ever say that. You were worth the world to—"

"To who? Bucky? My ma? The world couldn't care less about me back then. And, look, Buck and I were pals, but…as soon as he got married, that woulda been the end of it. Because that's what happened back then. You got married, you settled down, you didn't see your pals as much. I was never going to find someone to settle down with. But Bucky? The girls were always throwing themselves at him. You know, the last night I saw him — the night we went to the Expo and saw Howard's 'flying' car that crashed and burned? — he set me up on a date. It was a double date, and I'm not sure she said two words to me before she was hanging off Bucky's arm. Bucky just had that charm about him that I never had."

"He was a fucking flirt that was playing the field, babe. You were looking for a soul mate. He was looking for a good time. How do I know? Because I _was_ him— I mean, not literally, but just looking for a good time? Yeah, I've been there. I know what it's like. You weren't looking to waste your time on anything or anyone that wasn't going to be in it for the long haul with you. And, sweetheart, I love you to pieces, but you're not a flirt — not a good one. You're a little too… blunt and a little too polite and chivalrous. You're too… _honest_ — And that's not a bad thing! Before you get any ideas that I'm… That's not a bad thing. You are _terrible_ for flattery. People like to be flattered, babe. They _love_ to be flattered. They love to be told how pretty and smart and funny and oh-so-wonderful they are. And that's…that's not you. Now, I'm not saying these girls weren't idiots that wouldn't know a good thing if it smacked them in the face, but — and I'm _not_ trying to insult you in any way — maybe…they didn't think you were as much _fun_ as your pal was."

"Thanks," he muttered but didn't loosen his hold any, and Tony held him a little closer and stroked the soft, short hairs at the nape of his neck.

"Honey, I'm not trying to hurt you, and I'm not trying to insult you. I'm just saying that _maybe_ you didn't show them the same adorable bashfulness or the same wonderfully dry sense of humor that you showed me."

"Yeah, well, doesn't really matter now. It's all in the past. I'm not really upset about it. It's just… It's something I would have been upset about then — maybe I _was_ a little upset about then — because I didn't…because so far as I knew there was nothing other than that that I could ever expect or hope for."

Tony just stroked his hair a few more quiet moments, and the clouds that had been hanging over the city all day — hey, he'd listened to the weather report JARVIS had given him earlier! — finally opened to a torrent of rainfall, droplets hitting against the windows and cascading down in rivulets that made the lights of the city look fractured and blurry.

"I wish I could have been there with you. I mean it," he added at Steve's disbelieving scoff. "I wish I could have… I wish I could have seen what you saw. You're in my world. You don't have a choice. You know what my world looks like. I wish I could have seen your world. I wish I could have seen it with you. Fuck, even if I had to go looking like this—" He pulled one arm from around Steve and patted his belly before he put it back. "I wish I could have been there with you. Even just for a day."

Steve was quiet for a moment before he said, his voice just above a murmur, "I wish you could have been there, too. 'Course, if you looked like yourself, they'd probably arrest us. Two fellas carrying on like that—"

"Eh, we'd have to keep the PDAs to a solid zero then. Not as much fun, _clearly,_ but a hell of a lot safer."

"I suppose. I mean, the one thing I wish more than anything… I really wish my ma coulda met you. I wish you coulda met her."

Tony just stroked his hair and said, "Well, when I invent time travel—"

"Please don't invent time travel."

"—that'll be our first stop, OK? We'll go back and see your mom, and you can show off this gorgeous body that you picked up in your travels— oh, and probably show her what science was able to do for your body, too."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it, babe." He leaned down and pressed a kiss to the crown of Steve's head. "You know, I wish Jarvis — the real Jarvis — could have met you."

"Not your ma?"

" _Oh, darling, not him. Please. Not your father's obsession_."

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess, but Jarvis…"

"Was important to you."

He nodded but said nothing.

"Did Jarvis know that you were, uh…"

"Not one hundred percent straight? Pretty sure. I came of age during the '80s when the AIDS scare was at its peak, and I remember Jarvis saying something like, 'Please do take the proper precautions, Young Sir.'"

"He could have just been talking about you not getting any girl pregnant, you know, or contracting the usual kinds of VD."

"STDs, babe. Get with the times. But yeah, you might think that except it was immediately after we watched a report about how the AIDS epidemic was affecting the gay community. I think he was sort of under the impression—"

"You were part of it?"

"Yeah. I mean, I guess in a way he wasn't wrong, but I was never that… _active_ , I guess is the word? Let's just say the number of my actual conquests has been greatly exaggerated."

"I won't ask how many. I probably don't want to know."

"Honestly? Probably not. But like you said, that's all in the past. It doesn't matter. What matters is now, and now is you and me, and that's that."

They both went quiet again, and Tony looked over to the window and watched the raindrops cascade down the glass, and he swallowed and thought this might spoil everything, but he needed it to be said. He needed to clear the air with Steve.

"I know Barnes didn't kill my parents. I mean, I guess _technically_ —" He stopped talking and shook his head. "I know it was Hydra. I know it was Hydra that brainwashed him and turned him into a mindless assassin. You're right. I can't hold that against him any more than I can hold what Barton did while he was Loki's pawn against him. I don't know if the international community will see it the same way that I do, but I'm willing to… You don't have to do it alone. You don't have to bring him back from the brink alone. It doesn't have to all be on your shoulders. You think you failed him the first time? Fine. I can't stop you from believing that. But you don't have to do it alone now. It doesn't only have to be you helping him now. And I honestly get the feeling that Nat knows him more than she's letting on."

Steve turned his head some so that he was able to rub his face into Tony's side, and he murmured, "I get that feeling, too."

"If anyone knows what it's like to come back from being a brainwashed Russian assassin, it's our very own red-haired, formerly brainwashed Russian assassin that totally stole my name—"

" _Tony_ —"

"Yeah, all right, fine. But my point is that we — all of us — can help him. Can help try to acclimate him. Can try to pull him back from the brink and get him some semblance of a life back. You're not Atlas, Steve. You don't have to take the entire world on your shoulders, no matter how much it feels like you do sometimes. No one's expecting you to 'save' Barnes alone. No one wants you to do it alone. And — again, you know how much I love you — in a way, I think Wilson might be able to help him a bit more than you. He's a counselor — he's a vet counselor. You want to talk a vet that's going to have some massive PTSD? I mean, outside of you? Because you took a seventy-year ice-nap and then you woke up and kicked ass against aliens and evil government agencies. You've always fought the good fight. He didn't. He has to reconcile being used as a pawn, as a weapon for seventy years, and having no control over any of those things that he did. The Winter Soldier made me an orphan, and I know I piss and moan about being turned into a woman and getting knocked up by a certain super soldier that shall remain nameless, but that is _nothing_ compared to the bullshit that guy probably went through, and I would rather spend the rest of my life like this than have to deal for one _moment_ with the massive, massive guilt that he'll have to deal with the rest of his life."

Steve exhaled a light breath. "Thank you, Tony."

Tony stroked his hair again. "Don't mention it. We can all help. I mean, hell, I've been salivating from the moment I met him to get my hands on that arm."

Steve sounded hesitant.  "Yeah, about that—"

"What? Wait, _what?_ " He pulled away from Steve to look at him. "You don't— Please tell me you did _not_ already find someone else to look at it. I swear to god, Steve— Is there someone else? Are you going to someone else for your—"

Steve merely laughed a little. "No! No, nothing like that. It's just…" He grimaced and said, "I may have already promised him you would take a look at it. It's…it's really bothering him. Bad. He doesn't know how to fix it. I said you were a genius. You'd fix it for him in no time flat."

Tony exhaled a breath. "I wish you hadn't done that, babe."

Steve suddenly looked a little panicked. "But you said—"

He put a hand up to quiet him. "Yeah, I said I wanted to get my hands on it. But that doesn't mean I'll be able to… Oh, who am I kidding? I can _probably_ fix it, but I don't know about 'no time flat.' They probably weren't using Stark technology in that thing. Fuck, for all I know it was Hammer tech, and if that's the case, we're better off starting from scratch."

"But you'll work on it? You'll try to help him? You'll try to fix it?"

Tony smiled at him and stroked his face. "Yeah, babe. I'll help him. I'll try to fix it for him. I know how much it would mean to you."

Steve reached up and grasped Tony's hands, and he brought each one to his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss into each palm. "Thank you."

"Yeah, here's the thing. In return? I get a foot rub whenever I want it, and I don't care if it's four o'clock in the morning. I get a craving for something, you go out and you find it for me. Deal?"

Steve just laughed, and he tugged Tony closer and then put his hand around the back of Tony's neck to bring their mouths together, and before he kissed him, he murmured exactly one word against Tony's lips.

"Deal."

"Hey, Steve?" Tony asked after a moment of light, languid kisses.

"Hmm?"

"You ever seen _Rosemary's Baby_?"


	19. Chapter 19

* * *

He took a breath.

He could do this. He could totally do this. He'd promised Steve, and even he himself was…trying to make an effort.

He tried to appear casual, and he tried to sit down at his workstation like it was nothing but he couldn't sit still, and he kept fiddling with anything he could get his hands on, and he was up and down off his chair at least five times in a span of five minutes. Maybe it was just nervous energy he was trying to get rid of.

He turned when the door to the workshop opened, and Steve strolled in followed by a hesitant Barnes, who scoped out the room with curious eyes almost hidden behind straw-like hair. Steve shot a nervous smile at him as he led Barnes over, and he stopped just on the other side of Tony's worktable and motioned around.

"Welcome to Tony's church," he told Barnes, who just looked around like he wasn't sure what to make of the place and was ready to bolt at a moment's notice.

"Too kind, babe," Tony said and swallowed his nerves as he stepped around the table and made his way over to where Barnes stood beside Steve. "All right, let's see what we have here."

He went to reach for Barnes's arm, but Barnes turned on him, and a flash of murder crossed his eyes before it vanished, and he pulled his arm away from Tony's reach.

"Buck, don't do that," Steve said with a sigh. "I told you. Tony's going to help you."

Barnes didn't say anything, and Steve shot a remorseful look at Tony before he turned his attention back to his old friend.

"Buck, I promise—" he tried to say, but Bucky's attention had since gone to something on the other side of the room, and Tony followed his line of sight until he found what shiny object had struck his fancy.

DUM-E was over in his station, charging, but he was raising his arm slowly, almost deviously, like he was trying to get a look at who this new person was in the lab without getting caught doing it.

"You're a menace and an embarrassment to your kind," Tony called out to him.

"Tony, don't tell him that," Steve said, but Tony motioned for DUM-E to roll his stupid bucket of bolts on over.

"C'mere," he said, and DUM-E happily wheeled out of his charging station and over to the trio. "What? No, don't get excited. I'm not giving you a job to do. Last time I gave you a job, you ended up wearing the hat. You want to wear the hat again?"

"Hat?" Barnes asked, earning a strangely relieved reaction from Steve.

"He knows what hat," Tony said as DUM-E met up with them and nudged Steve. "He also likes Steve the best."

"He does not," Steve said, but there was a bashfulness to his words and a slight tinge of pink to the apples of his cheeks.

Tony considered this look a moment before he said, "No, he does. That's 'cause Steve plays with him because Steve seems to think he's an overgrown puppy instead of a _helper bot_ —" he directed those last two stern words at DUM-E, who shrank a little and tried to hide behind Steve.

"Tony, you're making him feel bad!" Steve said before he turned to DUM-E and began to pet him. "He doesn't meant it. Honest. You know how he gets sometimes."

Barnes just looked between them, eyes squinted in confusion, before he said, "Am I…dead? Is this a dream?"

"Uh, why?" Tony asked, not sure where this line of questioning was leading.

But Barnes just shook his head a little then turned to Steve and said, "This would be the kind of thing you'd stumble into."

Steve just grinned at him and continued to pet DUM-E, and Barnes watched him a moment before he nodded his head at the useless heap of scrap metal and said, "Can he really… Can he really understand what we're saying?"

"Eh," Tony said with a shrug. "Probably understands more than he lets on, but we're talking the mental capacity of an eight-year-old here, not some genius Nobel prize winner."

" _Tony_ ," Steve said with a scoff and rolled eyes, but Barnes just continued to squint at DUM-E as he considered the hunk of junk and then said, "Is he…self-aware?"

"Uh…" Tony blinked. "Is that a problem?"

Barnes turned to him. "Is he?" he asked, but there was a clouded distance in his eyes that made it hard to read the intent.

Tony met his gaze a moment before he shrugged and said, "To a point. He's not JARVIS, but then, JARVIS doesn't have a physical body like DUM-E has, so…"

"JARVIS?" Barnes asked, confusion tingeing his voice.

"J?"

" _Sir?_ " JARVIS replied, and Barnes looked up at the ceiling and frowned or glowered or… whatever. Clearly, being Hydra's pawn for seventy years must have fucked him up, because he had one hell of a miserable look on his face most of the time. Eh, maybe 'miserable' wasn't being entirely charitable. 'Disgruntled.' He had a disgruntled look on his face most of the time.

"Is it in the ceiling?" Barnes asked and pointed, and Tony just shook his head a little and turned his attention to Steve.

"What the hell is it with you past-people and this belief that any disembodied voice has to be coming from the ceiling?"

Steve just folded his arms and raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, maybe if you didn't put the speakers up there."

Tony made a face. "No, don't call them 'speakers.' That sounds so… Call them 'auditory feedback relays.'"

Steve just shot a pointed look at him. "Speakers."

"Fuck you."

Steve hummed out a thought then nodded at Tony's belly. "Pretty sure that's how that happened."

"That's a thin line you're treading there, Captain Stark-Rogers."

Barnes turned his attention to Steve. "Did you…change your name?" he asked like he wasn't sure whether to laugh at him or ask him if he was feeling OK.

"We both did," Steve said, his gaze still locked with Tony's and a small, knowing smile on his face. Try as he might, Tony couldn't help but return it in kind.

Fuck, he was so gone for this man.

Barnes seemed to feel like he'd become the proverbial third wheel, as he said a somewhat hesitant, "Uh, I can come back later if you need…"

Steve sobered, and he broke the gaze with Tony and turned to Barnes. "That won't be necessary," he said, the voice pure Captain America, and even Barnes seem to understand it was a different tone than he was accustomed to. He frowned a little at Steve but then shrugged like he couldn't be bothered to figure it out, and Steve turned his attention to Tony. The voice was, again, pure Captain America, but the concern was all Steve Rogers — or Steve Stark-Rogers.

"Anything happens," he murmured, his gaze boring into Tony's, "JARVIS'll alert me. OK?"

He swallowed and nodded. "Yep. Uh, unless you'd like to stick around?"

It wasn't that he was scared to be left alone with Barnes — OK, maybe the idea put him a little on edge — but he didn't know him, well, at all, and he would have felt a little better maybe to have Steve there to somehow keep the peace between them. Tony was good at running his mouth, but he really did hate small talk — any kind, awkward or not — and he wasn't looking forward to making small talk with his husband's oldest friend that, up until almost a year ago, had been a brainwashed  assassin.

Oh, and also the person that he maybe did harbor an eensy, weensy bit of jealousy toward. Oh, yeah, and also the person that had, not under his own volition, killed his parents.

God, he was going to have to have a _long_ talk with his therapist after this. Was Bruce busy?

"I would," Steve said, cutting into his thoughts, "but Nat's got some intel on a possible Hydra cell. She and Sam are heading out to do recon. I said I'd keep in contact. Figured you wouldn't want to be disturbed with my chatter, so I've got the tablet synced up with their comms. I'll handle it upstairs so you two don't have to listen to it."

Tony leaned a hip against the table and folded his arms. "You're going to read more pregnancy articles, aren't you?"

Steve had the decency to look a _little_ rueful as he said, "They're not _all_ pregnancy articles. I do try to keep aware of what's going on in the world."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "While you're keeping in contact with Wilson and Natasha," he said, and Steve grinned.

"Serum," he said. "Most efficient multi-tasker you could imagine."

"Why do I feel like that's his excuse for everything?" Barnes said.

"It's because it is," Tony replied then sighed and waved Steve off. "Go. Read your pregnancy articles, you overgrown boy scout."

"Tony, I really wish you would—"

Tony just waved him off again. "That's what I have you for. You can give me the Reader's Digest version of things. Now, get out of here before I make you sit down here and help me."

Steve scoffed out a laugh. "You'd never do that."

Barnes looked between them. "Why, uh, why not?"

Tony waggled his eyebrows. "Because as much of a whore as I'm made out to be by the media, I'm not an exhibitionist, and your pal Stevie over there has a very unique viewpoint of what constitutes 'helping' me in my workshop— Or, what did you call it? Church?" He hummed a little in thought. "It's not untrue, is it?"

Steve just shook his head a little, and he reached down and held Tony's face in his hands. "Be good. Get actual work done." He then nodded his head in Barnes's direction and said, "He's playing it off, but the arm's really bothering him." And then, his eyes went a little soft and concerned. "You can… You can help, right?"

Tony shrugged. "Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy," he said, and Steve bent down and captured Tony's lips with his own. Tony closed his eyes and hummed a little into it, parting his mouth and letting Steve slip a little bit of tongue in before their mouths parted, and Steve moved up to press a kiss against Tony's nose.

"Be good," Steve murmured then turned to DUM-E, who was still trying to hide behind Steve for protection. "And that goes for you, too."

DUM-E beeped a little in recognition as Steve patted his support strut, and Barnes stared at Steve and said, "You're talking to it like it can actually understand you."

" _He_ ," Steve said quickly. "And yes, he can. Right, DUM-E?"

DUM-E beeped and whirred in response, and Barnes looked at Tony, disbelief and perplexity written over his face. Tony just shrugged. "I told you. He likes Steve the best."

Barnes stared at him a moment, his mouth dropping open like he wanted to say something before he seemingly thought the better of it and shook his head, closing his mouth before voicing the thought.

Steve left after that with one final reminder that he would be just up in the penthouse, DUM-E whirring a little in disappointment as he watched Steve leave, and then Tony was left alone with Barnes for the first time, well, _ever_.

Barnes, to his credit, seemed as uncomfortable with the whole endeavor as Tony was, and Tony scratched the back of his head then motioned to the chair he'd set up beside the worktable.

"You can sit there. If you want," he said. "Make things easier for both of us, I think."

Barnes eyed it warily a moment before he seemingly determined it wasn't going to harm him in any way and sat down hard, like he was trying to prove a point that he thought this was stupid and he was only doing it for Steve's sake because Steve was never going to shut up about it otherwise.

Fuck, now why did that action seem so familiar?

"Uh, and this is not innuendo in any way, but I'm gonna need you to take that shirt off so I can get at that arm."

Barnes stared at him a moment before he yanked his shirt off and tossed it aside, and Tony paused a moment to look at the pink puckering at the shoulder joint where metal was fused to bone-and- flesh. Immediately, he was reminded of his own reactor scars, and, unthinkingly, he reached up and rubbed at his chest where the reactor had once sat, his hand meeting nothing but smooth flesh atop an unbroken sternum.

Oh, and breasts. Rather prominent breasts instead of pectorals.

He shook his head a little and dropped his hand, and he looked over to where DUM-E was hovering by the door, either like he was waiting for Steve to come back or he was waiting for an invitation to actually do some helping of some kind. Tony took pity on what he supposed was technically his 'eldest' and he sighed a little and waved at him and said, "OK, come on. I can probably find something for you to do here."

DUM-E cheeped and beeped and whirred like he'd just won the lottery (he wouldn't put it past that little bastard trying to play the lottery, to be honest), and he sped on over and stopped just beside Barnes, who looked up at the giant hunk of metal above him and made a face at it before he turned to Tony.

"It's not going to _do_ anything to me, is it?"

"Not to hurt you," Tony said as he sat down at his computer and began to pull up the program he'd set up. "He likes Steve, Steve likes you, so you're golden, really." He looked at DUM-E and said, "No, go on the other side. I need you by his other arm."

Barnes watched as DUM-E rolled over to his other side and sat just behind his left arm, and Tony pointed to the magnifying glass lying on the table.

"That. I need you to hold that, OK? It's a very important job. I don't need you to screw it up. Got me?"

DUM-E beeped like he was acknowledging, and as he picked up the magnifying glass, Barnes said, "This is a joke, right? You're joking. You've got me on camera, don't you?"

"Yeah," Tony said with a shrug as he set up all the tools he figured he would need, "but not for the reason you're thinking. JARVIS is always monitoring what we do."

"Yeah, but, it's not actually..." He glanced back and saw that DUM-E was holding fast to the magnifying glass, awaiting further instruction. "Someone's controlling it."

Tony snorted out a laugh. "If that were the case, maybe he would actually work as intended instead of like an overgrown, overindulged puppy." He looked at DUM-E and added, "I made you, kid. I know you. Don't think you're fooling me with that shit you pull. You might have Steve wrapped around your claw, but I see right through you, you overgrown bucket of bolts."

DUM-E whirred a little in what sounded like sadness, his claw lowering just the slightest, but Barnes stared at him a little thoughtfully and said, "Wait, you actually like it, don't you?"

"Say again?"

"The..." He motioned to DUM-E with his flesh hand. "You don't really mean that — that you just think of it as an overgrown bucket of bolts. You really like it."

Tony just stared at Barnes a moment, perplexed that he would pick up on something like _that_ , before he turned back to the computer to make sure the module had loaded properly.

"Did you really make it?" Barnes asked after a moment.

"Yeah," he said, inputting a few codes into the module and not bothering to look at Barnes. "When I was a teenager, so, that clearly goes to show how useful it is."

Barnes was quiet a moment before he said, "Wait, was this the one you rescued from the bottom of the ocean or something?"

Tony stopped inputting codes but didn't look away from the computer.

"Steve said something about you being more sentimental than you'd ever admit to anyone."

"Yeah, well," he said, breezy and cool as he typed in the last code, "sometimes Steve doesn't know what he's talking about."

Barnes stayed quiet at that, and Tony had a feeling he hadn't believed a word he'd said but was too big a person to fight him on it. Tony, mentally sighing in relief at the lull in conversation, finished setting up his program before he decided it was time to get to work.

"Could you not sit there looking so murder-y?" he asked and wheeled over, various implements in hand. "Giving me the heebie-jeebies."

"Sorry," Barnes muttered, and for the next several minutes, Tony worked in almost complete silence, his own tinkering and DUM-E's light whirring as he moved the magnifying glass into better positions for Tony being the only thing cutting into the void. He was used to having music play, but he figured his usual hard rock choices would be a bad idea with Barnes in the vicinity. Steve just didn't really care for the stuff, but Barnes was liable to have a bad flashback from the shit.

So, he worked in silence, running wires between terminals and reading whatever popped up on his computer screen and making adjustments as he saw fit, and after several long, quiet minutes that felt more like an hour but was maybe only around a quarter of that, Barnes swallowed rather audibly and said, "I saw that... I read about Steve and you. A lot. Thought you were a fella?"

Tony glanced to Barnes for a moment then went back to twisting and soldering wires in his arm. "I was. Still am."

"You sure?"

"Eh," he said and snipped one connection to rewire it to another, "still think of myself as one. I guess. I don't— I'm not really sure— I mean I guess—"

"That Steve's?" he asked and pointed a finger at Tony's swollen abdomen. Tony just smirked and soldered a couple more wires together, kind of thankful that Barnes had gotten distracted from his failing attempt to explain how he felt about himself.

"Thought we already established this, but yeah, it's Steve's."

"Huh."

" _Huh_? What's that supposed to mean?"

Barnes shrugged a little, and Tony rolled his eyes and said, "Fuck's sake, I said sit still."

"Sorry," he muttered then added, "just…Steve was always kind of a…sickly…sort. He used to talk about wanting kids, but he was the sort of fella… I just wasn't sure he'd actually ever be able to have 'em, you know what I mean?"

"Thought he was shooting blanks?"

Barnes looked at him, and he blinked then said, "Yeah, I think so. Think that's what I meant. Steve was…a stubborn son-of-a-bitch—"

Tony snorted a laugh. "You don't say."

"Guess he hasn't changed much?"

Tony shrugged. "You're really the only one that can be the judge of that. I just know he's a stubborn fuck. He gets an idea in his head, there's almost no changing it — well, not unless _he_ comes to the realization himself that it needs to be changed. He can drive you up a wall sometimes."

"Yeah, at least when he was pocket-sized, I could just grab him and hoist him out of trouble. Kind of hard to do now that he's bigger than I am."

Tony couldn't help the licentious smirk that spread over his lips. "And he knows how to use that size to his advantage, too."

He expected some sort of face and comment about that not being a visual he needed, but Barnes just sat there, seemingly nonplussed by Tony's comment. Which…wasn't any fun. Jesus, what was the point of making these comments if no one was going to react to them in any meaningful way? Jeez, where were Barton and Bruce when he needed them? They would have whined over that comment.

"I kept tryin' to set him up with girls," Barnes just said. "Kept hoping one of them would… That he could settle down with one of them. I knew he was…like that. He'd deny it, but I knew he was. Finally came straight out one day and just told him I knew he was deviant. Looked like a fucking deer caught in the headlights. He tried to talk his way around it — he's always trying to do shit like that — but I told him it didn't bother me. I didn't give a shit. He hadn't put a move on me up to that point, so I knew he wasn't going to try anything after that. Never did. Asked him once if he thought of me like that — looked at me like that. Said he didn't. Saw me too much like a brother."

"You…didn't believe him?" Tony asked slowly, not sure where Barnes was going with this.

"Nah, I did. That's sort of—" He let out a laugh and scratched at his face with the hand that Tony wasn't working on. "Look, man, that's not my…that's not my deal. I don't care if that's… But that's not my deal. But I gotta tell ya, it…it was sort of…insulting."

"Insulting?" Tony said with a bit of a laugh to his voice.

"Yeah! I mean, what, I'm not attractive enough?"

Tony hummed as he considered this, soldering a wire to a new connection. "The era you guys came from, I figured you'd be relieved Steve didn't want to fuck you."

"Well, look, I admit it mighta been a little…weird…if he'd said he did, but he didn't, so—"

"So, no matter the answer, you would have been insulted," Tony supplied for him.

"Well, now I just sound like a dick."

"Nah," Tony said and turned to his computer to run a simulation. "This might feel a little weird for a sec. Anything hurts in any way, you let me know, got it?"

"Yeah, yeah," Barnes said and waved off his concern with his free hand.

"I think it's a reasonable reaction," Tony said after a moment of watching the computer run through the test. "I mean, my pal Rhodey and me? I was straight and he wasn't and he said he didn't think I was fuckable? Yeah, I'd be a little insulted. Like, what's wrong with me? Why aren't I good enough? Am I unattractive? Am I hideous? Why am I not fuckable?"

"I don't know. Maybe that's what it is," Barnes said. "Not that I _wanted_ him to look at me like that, but just the fact that he didn't even have to think about it. Fuck, talk about an insult."

Tony snorted out another laugh. "Steve's a very…frank kind of guy. Doesn't like to sugarcoat. Tells you exactly what he thinks about something."

"Yeah, guy was never very good with tact like that. Don't think he's ever heard the phrase 'letting 'em down easy.'"

Tony barked out a laugh. "Steve? Fuck, no. God, I remember—"

He sat back in his chair and folded his arms so they rested between his breasts and his belly.

"—probably one of the first times after New York that we went out as a team. Had to call a 'Code Green' — that's what we call it when we have to call in the big guy — and, uh, afterward, Bruce was…having a bit of a hard time coming down from it. Wanted to know if he'd hurt anyone."

Barnes's mouth fell open, and his eyes went owlish like he knew exactly what Tony was going to say. "Oh, god," he muttered.

"So, Steve, our darling, wonderful leader, tells him _precisely_ the count for the Hulk in this blunt, matter-of-fact manner: kills, manner of killing, etc. I thought Bruce was going to cry. He's a peaceful guy. Thinks he's a fucking hippy." He laughed at the memory of it. "You should have seen the look on Nat's face. I thought she was going to kill him."

Barnes's eyes went a little clouded at the mention of 'Nat,' and Tony catalogued it for later but continued his story.

"So, the group — and they didn't know Steve and I were kind of _doing it_ yet — volunteered me, as second-in-command, to talk to Steve about not being so…blunt…in his  assessments."

Barnes blinked, and the cloudiness left his eyes as he turned his attention back to him. "I take it that went over well."

"Like a fucking lead balloon. Kept insisting Bruce wanted to know and that wasn't something that should be hidden from the guy. I said, yeah, I understand that, honey, but you don't have to be so… _mean_ about it."

"He didn't get it, did he?"

"Nah," he said with a shake of his head. "Which is why he's not allowed to give the battle reports on the Hulk to Bruce anymore. He's still the one that writes them up because he thinks anything that goes on the record should be as factual as possible— _well_ , within reason. But he's not allowed to tell Bruce—"

"I can see that," Barnes said. "Another reason I kind of…" He laughed and said, "Jesus, I could imagine, he got himself a girl, the first time she asked him if something made her look fat—"

Tony glared at him, and Barnes stopped laughing and sobered immediately.

"He didn't."

Tony just thinned his lips and said, "Now, I am not _fat._ I am _pregnant_ — with his child, mind you, which is a fucked-up miracle in and of itself — and I was trying something on the other day, something I'd actually been wearing for a while but I'm starting to get just a little too, well, _big_ , so I can't really wear it anymore. Anyway, I asked him _not_ if it made me look fat but if it was pulling just a little too tight on me. What does the bastard say?"

"Something that was too bluntly earnest for the bastard's own good," Barnes muttered.

"He said, and I quote, 'I think you've put on too much weight.'"

Barnes sighed and shook his head.

"Now, I've been having a hell of a time keeping my emotions in check since, oh, last December, really, so what do _I_ do? Start crying of course. What does _he_ do? Ask me what I'm crying about. I tell him. He says, 'Well, you wanted to know! What was I supposed to do? Lie to you?'"

Barnes heaved out another sigh. "You know he didn't meant it like that."

"As an insult? Yeah, I know." He sat back up again and began to run another test on the arm circuitry. "But sometimes, I wish he could be just a little more…tactful."

Barnes was the one to snort the laugh this time. "If you're waitin' for that to happen, you're gonna be waitin' a long time. Steve's never gonna change. Gotta take 'im as he is. I kept hoping he'd stop trying to pick fights with everyone — stop trying to prove his fucking usefulness. He hasn't stopped picking fights in seventy years, I don't think he's gonna develop any more tact, either."

"I know, and I understand that, and I wouldn't want him to change, to be honest. He wouldn't be the man I fell in love with if he did. And that's not…" He frowned a little and went contemplative. "That's not like hoping he'll stop drinking or stop hitting you or stop cheating on you. It's not something that makes you wonder if he's even worth sticking it out for. He's too honest. So the fuck what? If that's the worst thing I can say about him, then I think I lucked out pretty damned well in the marriage department."

Barnes just shook his head a little, like he was having a hard time accepting whatever it was he was thinking. "Never thought Stevie'd get married before me," he murmured. "And to a rich feller at that."

"Eh," Tony said with a shrug as he tweaked a few more connections, DUM-E still patiently holding the magnifying glass for him. "At heart, I'm a mechanic that was born into the right family. Just the luck of the draw, really."

Barnes was silent a moment before he said, "Howard didn't give a shit about Steve."

Tony felt the bottom fall out of his stomach, and he sat back a little and avoided looking at Barnes because he wasn't sure whether he wanted to choke him or burst into tears. Even DUM-E seemed to sense the change in the air, as he pulled back some, raising his arm just the slightest as though he was taking an offensive position...with a magnifying glass.

It was the thought that counted, he supposed.

"Look," Barnes said. "I know what I… I know—"

"It wasn't you. It was the Winter Soldier," Tony repeated like an automaton, still refusing to look at him.

"Who the fuck do you think that was?"

Tony glanced up and saw Barnes glaring at him, and he surreptitiously looked to his right to make sure his brand-new travel gauntlet was within reach should he need it before JARVIS felt it prudent to alert Steve. Even DUM-E whirred some, the sound coming off a lot like unease and suspicion.

But Barnes just ran a frustrated hand through his hair and said, "Steve thinks I can just— I don't really know who I am now. I remember— Yeah, I remember Brooklyn. I remember the war. But I…I remember other stuff, too."

"Like killing my parents?" he asked, the words like acid on his tongue.

Barnes heaved out a breath. "Yeah," he croaked out after a moment. "I remember… Howard didn't give a shit about Steve. Thought he was a science project of his and nothing else. Not really."

Tony just pursed his lips and folded his arms again, nestling them beneath breasts that he suddenly realized were kind of tender. "Yeah? That's funny because _Steve_ was all he could talk about when I was growing up. How great he was and how fantastic he was and how brilliant he was and how good-hearted he was. It's kind of a small miracle I didn't repulsor the bastard's ass the first time I set eyes on him just to spite my old man."

But Barnes just sat there and scowled at him. "Look, all I know is what he was like during the war, and during the war, he only saw him as one of his projects that had actually gone _right_. I thought the guy was a crackpot. Couldn't understand why the government was contracting with _him_ to build weapons. Thought maybe Uncle Sam was secretly trying to kill us all. Steve told me he married Stark's kid, I thought, all right, whatever. Not my business what he does behind closed doors. But then he says Stark's kid is gonna work on my arm?" He laughed in disbelief. "Fuck, I almost started running again. Figured if Stark's kid was as bad with this shit as his old man was, I'd probably blow up like something out of a cartoon."

Tony pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow. "Nice to know you think so well of us."

He shook his head. "Nah, it's… Steve said you're good. He trusts you. Thinks you're a fucking genius. Almost get the feeling he thinks you walk on water."

Tony snorted a bitter laugh. "Yeah, I wouldn't go that far."

"You know what I mean, though. I knew Steve back then. He's… A lot of him's the same, but a lot of him's different now. Not sure I know him any better than he knows me. But I know who he was, and trust me, I've never seen him lose his head over anyone the way he's lost his head over you."

Tony sat back up and moved closer to Barnes to finish up the repairs, DUM-E moving back into place with the magnifying glass. "Yeah? He sure gives a shitty impression of it from time-to-time."

Barnes burst out laughing. "Fuck, no wonder you two…"

He trailed off and shook his head but he continued to laugh to himself. Tony watched him a moment before he scowled a little and closed up the access panel to the arm.

"There," he said, "should be good to go. How's it feel?"

Barnes sat up a little, DUM-E pulling away but still holding tight to that stupid magnifying glass, and he flexed his hand and wiggled his fingers and did a sort of windmill motion with his arm. He seemed impressed by the range of motion, if the look of awe on his face was anything to go by, and he glanced over at Tony and said, "Your old man coulda learned a thing or two from you."

"Yeah, well," he said and turned back to the computer to close out the program. "Not my fault he didn't live long enough to be able to. _Not_ that he would have even given me the time of day about it, but…"

"Then he was a fucking moron," Barnes said and stood up. He reached out how discarded t-shirt and tugged it over his head.

Tony just sat at his computer and stared at the screen, letting the light from the monitor burn into his retinas as he thought, once again, about the very last time he ever saw his parents alive, and he got lost in the swirl of colors that blended together as his eyes relaxed until he felt a pressure on his shoulder. He gasped and jumped, pulled away from that fateful Christmas of so long ago, and he turned to see Barnes standing beside him, his flesh-and-bone hand on his shoulder, those cloudy, blue eyes looking down at him, and Tony saw the ghosts of the past swirling in his haunted irises.

"He loves you," Barnes said simply. "Went crazy when you wouldn't take his calls the other day. Thought he was gonna tear his hair out. Wouldn't stop talking about you the entire time. Had to talk him down from stealing a car and chasing after you."

Tony just smiled some and snorted a laugh. "Yeah, breaking the law is OK when he does it."

"Tried to give me some bullshit about how we'd only be 'borrowing' it, so it wasn't technically stealing." He smiled a little, faintly, but it couldn't mask the ever-present horror that clouded his eyes. "I guess you can take the kid out of Brooklyn…"

"Yeah," Tony said and nodded his agreement.

Barnes simply squeezed his shoulder. "Don't fuck it up, all right? He's so far gone, I'm not sure what he'd do or what would happen to him if you…"

Tony just reached up and patted his hand. "Don't worry," he said and stood up, Barnes's hand falling away from his shoulder. "You're not the first one to tell me that."

"Hey, I told him the same thing about you."

Tony stopped and frowned at him, and Barnes made a slight face and scratched at the back of his head.

"It was…kind of easy to tell. The way you two were at the cabin, the argument on the side of the road, it was kind of…"

He took several steps away from Tony and crossed his arms over his chest as though to guard himself.

"Steve's the kind of guy that can't always see the forest for the trees, you know? He doesn't see something that's right in front of him at times. I used to think the bastard wouldn't know happiness if it bit him in the ass, and what I see with you two, I _still_ wonder if the bastard wouldn't know it if it bit him in the ass. I think he's afraid to be happy or feel happy or let himself relax. He doesn't think he deserves it. Thinks he's still got something to prove to somebody. I don't know who. You stare at him with those big doe-eyes of yours like you see your entire world in him, and I don't think he… I don't think he gets that. I don't think he sees it. I don't think he lets himself see it. I don't know why. I mean, there must be a part of him that's firing on all cylinders because he was smart enough to marry you, and Steve was never the type of guy to just settle. Steve wanted the perfect partner. He didn't want to waste his time with anyone else."

Tony considered this a moment, sitting back down in his chair as he did so. "So…you're saying he thinks I'm his perfect partner?"

Barnes shrugged. "The part of him that's not stupid enough to toss away happiness with both hands thinks that, anyway. I thought for sure he was gonna ask that Agent Carter to ask him to marry him after the war was over. I don't know that they ever did anything more than talk about the next battle plan, but he was sweet on her! I only ever saw him go like that once, maybe twice before. Steve's not the type of guy to lose his head over anyone. But boy, he was sweet on her, but I think of the way I remember that, and then I see the way he looks at you, and it's totally different, you know?"

Tony just shook his head.

"Oh, well, it's — it's kind of hard to explain. The way he was with that agent, it was… It was cute, you know? He was like a puppy with her — soft smiles and bashful looks and that kind of shit. She was the first woman that he liked that ever liked him back, which says more about those other jerks than it does him. And not that I don't think Steve had it in him to know how to, you know, figure out how to _do_ certain things, but he was green with that sort of shit, and I get the feeling that agent wasn't. I don't mean to call her character into question. She was—" He whistled. "Steve knew how to pick 'em." He then added knowingly to Tony, "I guess he still does."

Tony decided to take it for the compliment he was certain it was intended as.

"But she struck me as the type of woman that knew what she wanted and got what she wanted and didn't give a shit what anyone thought of her for it."

"He told me I was his first," Tony said. "But I'm not exactly sure what Steve considers 'sex.' Much as I explain to him that it is, I don't think he considers getting sucked off 'sex.' Or eating out, for that matter."

Barnes blinked at him. "Did you just say what I think you said?"

Tony just grinned and swiveled a little in his chair. "Steve is a _fast_ learner, if you know what I mean. And he is _very_ good when it comes to studies of anatomy."

Barnes just stared at him and said, "He's fucked you six ways to Sunday, hasn't he?"

"And then some," Tony said with an easy shrug, but instead of shrinking away from the comment, Barnes nodded at him.

"That's what I mean. I can't imagine Steve being like that with, well, _anyone_. I never thought of Steve as the type to _fuck_. He always seemed more like the type to—"

"Make love," Tony finished for him with a knowing arch of his eyebrow.

"Yeah— Wait, what? I mean, how did you know that was what I was going to—"

Tony exhaled a breath. "Steve has no problem discussing the concept of 'fucking.' When it comes to me and him, however, he insists on calling it 'making love.'"

Barnes snorted out a laugh that became a chortle that turned into a guffaw that ended as a downright belly laugh complete with him clutching his gut and losing his balance as he fell into a chair. Tony just stared at him, perplexed, as he watched Barnes lose himself in the laughter, and finally, only when the tears were streaming down his face, did he get a hold of himself and sober enough to wipe the tears away and say, "Jesus Christ, Steve. Never change."

Slouched down in the chair, Barnes rolled his head around to face Tony, and he smirked at him, face still a nice shade of pink from his laughing fit, and said, "Look, you don't need to get graphic or anything. Just a simple 'yes' or 'no' is good enough."

"For?"

"A question."

"OK."

"You and Steve — do you fuck?"

"As opposed to 'make love'?"

"Yeah."

Tony blew out a breath and swiveled back and forth in his chair some more. "Honestly? Steve kind of… I guess he sort of characterizes _everything_ we do as 'making love.' Which is…sort of an interesting way to look at it because I'll be honest. A lot of the things we've done have been down and dirty fucking, no two ways about it. But I think it makes him feel kind of…kind of like a pervert of something if he says we're just fucking, or— No, no," he said and shook his head. "I don't think that's it. I think—" He laughed.

Oh, Jesus. This was it, wasn't it? This was the whole reason for Steve's insistence that they call everything that they did — from the soft, tender movements to the light Dom/sub stuff they dabbled in — 'making love.'

"It's because if we call it 'fucking' it devalues it. It doesn't mean as much. I think in his mind, anyone can _fuck_. I think he thinks people are a little too casual with the fucking now. Calling it 'making love,' I think to him, makes it mean more. It's not just sex, it's more than that. Yeah, we do some pretty…dirty stuff, I'll be honest here. But it's not just sex for him. It's something more than that. It's…"

He drifted off as he felt something wet and warm sliding down his face, and he laughed a little and reached up to brush the tears away.

"Jesus _fucking_ Christ! Really? Really, _this?_ My husband wants to make love to me. _That's_ what gets me crying today?"

Barnes had sat up some, and he had a look on his face like he was trying to figure out the easiest and fastest way of getting out of there so he wouldn't have to deal with Tony's tears. DUM-E just beeped and whirred like he wasn't sure what to do, magnifying glass still in-claw. But Tony shook his head and waved off their concern.

"No, don't worry about it. It's not anything that… I'm not crying— I'm not _really_ crying. J, you better not have told Steve about this! False alarm. Doesn't mean anything."

" _I did not inform the Captain because I did not believe it to be anything but the usual outpouring of excess emotion you have been showing since the conception._ "

Tony brushed the tears away and sniffled. "It has _not_ been that long!" he countered. "I didn't start doing this sort of shit until, like, two weeks ago."

" _Which runs contrary to what you already informed Sergeant Barnes earlier in this conversation. However, if that's the way you recall it, Sir, I should think it would perhaps be a good idea to have a full physical examination performed by a reputable medical professional with a special focus on memory and mental functions._ "

Barnes whistled some and said, "Your, uh, ceiling-voice-guy has got some giant brass balls."

Tony glared at him a moment before he said, "Keep it up, J. I'll donate you to Queens College yet."

" _I am merely making a suggestion for the betterment of your wellbeing, Sir_."

"He's a passive-aggressive prick, isn't he?" Barnes mused, and Tony rolled his eyes.

"Stop showing off in front of the guest!" he directed at the ceiling because— Oh, _fuck!_ He did it again, didn't he?

Without thinking, he let his hand slip down to his belly, and he brushed his fingertips over the swell.

Steve. It was always Steve. It was this— this _child_ inside of him that was making him do things like that, wasn't it? Or it was all the come that Steve had pumped into him over the course of the past couple years? That was it. It was— He had too much of _Steve_ in him, and that was why he was doing stupid shit like actually looking up at the ceiling to talk to JARVIS.

"Hey, man, I don't care," Barnes said, hands put up in slight defense, and Tony realized then he'd uttered probably every single word of that rant aloud. "I don't know that anything like that is possible," Barnes continued, "but if Steve's genes are as stubborn as he is, well, I guess I wouldn't be surprised."

Tony laughed as he blinked away the last of the tears. "You know, Barnes? I think this may be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

"Oh, Jesus Christ," Barnes muttered and sank down further into the chair, flesh hand covering his face as he shook his head. "You're just as much of a doofus as he is."

DUM-E, the damned traitor, just beeped and whirred in what sounded like cheerful agreement.

~*~

"Thank you," Steve said later that evening as they were climbing into bed for the night.

"Hmm…" Tony said as he clambered under the covers then stopped and frowned at Steve. "Wait, for what?"

Steve sat on the edge of the bed, and he checked his tablet one more time, set it aside, took a quick drink of water from the glass on the table beside the bed, then turned back to him.

"Hmm? Oh," he said and blushed a little, "Bucky. What you did for Bucky today."

Tony shrugged and waved off his concern. "Don't mention it. Happy to do it. Pretty standard fare with the arm — maybe a little substandard for my liking. You want, I can whip him up a new, better one lickety-split."

"I think he'd give you a better answer to that than I could. But thank you. For everything. JARVIS said you two were bonding a little?"

Tony arched and eyebrow at him. "Really starting to get the feeling my robots and AI like you better than they like me."

Steve laughed and reached out to take hold of Tony's hand, and Tony let him, watching as Steve played with his fingers.

"They do not. They just…know I'm looking out for you, too. We're all pretty useless without you."

"Steve, don't even start with—"

But Steve just steamrolled right over him and said, "I think you got more out of Bucky in two hours than I've been able to get out of him since I saw him on the bridge. I don't know how you did it, but thank you."

He didn't look Tony in the eye as he said that, and Tony had a feeling he felt a little embarrassed or defeated by the fact that his oldest pal felt more comfortable opening up in front of a, for all intents and purposes, total stranger than he did his little friend from the bad, old days. He supposed he could understand. It would be like if something had happened to Rhodey and Rhodey was more open and available to Steve than he was to Tony when they got him back. He could understand Steve's frustration in that regard.

Then again, Barnes was under no real pressure with Tony, the whole killing-his-parents-as-a- brainwashed-assassin thing aside. Tony really expected nothing of him. Steve was expecting, in Barnes's mind, the Barnes from seventy years ago, and that was just something he didn't think he could give him. As much as Tony hated to say it — for Steve's sake — maybe talking to Tony, opening up to Tony, was just...easier for Barnes?

He gently maneuvered his hand so he was holding Steve's instead of Steve playing with his, and he squeezed it a little and said, "For what it's worth, we spent most of the time talking about you."

Steve still didn't look at him, but he smiled a little and let out a noise that sounded like an exhaled laugh.

"Not sure how I should take that," he said, and Tony shrugged and squeezed his hand some more.

"It wasn't anything _bad_ , if that's what you're worried about. Mostly about how stubborn you are."

Steve let out another one of those exhaled laughs.

"How self-righteous you are. How, uh, _focused_ you can be."

Saying 'focused' was better than saying he was prone to being a single-minded pain-in-the-ass, right?

"And then I let him know how damned fucking hot you are and how good you are in bed."

"That must've gone over well."

Tony scooted closer to Steve, and he let go of his hand so he could reach up and wrap his arms around Steve's shoulders, and he pressed close and said, "The part of him that remembers you — that remembers Brooklyn and before the war and all that — wants you to be happy. And he thinks, or he's afraid, you can't see the forest for the trees. That you would gladly throw away happiness with both hands because you don't think you deserve it."

Steve didn't say anything to that. He just reached up and put a firm hand to Tony's arm that rested over his clavicle and held tight to it. Tony pushed even closer so that their bodies were flush with each other, and he tightened his hold on Steve and pressed his cheek to Steve's, both of them facing the foot of the bed and the black screen of the TV on the wall ahead of them.

"I love you, old man. And you're not useless without me. I can't lead that mixed bag of nuts we call the Avengers. I mean, I _could_ but nowhere near as well as you. And you heard that cosmic screwball. We're bondmates — or 'soul mates.' And that means I need you just as much as you need me."

"Thought you didn't believe in that?" Steve said, quiet, his voice a little gravelly like he hadn't used it in days.

He shrugged some. "Well, I don't real—" He heaved a sigh. "I don't know anymore. I just know that I would never entertain _this_ for anyone other than you, so, that must mean something, right? And, well, maybe there is something to it? Look, cards on the table, the first time I met you, I felt like I'd known you my whole life — and I don't just mean what dear, old Dad had talked about. Howard's 'Steve Rogers' and the real 'Steve Rogers' have some overlap, but Howard's version missed a lot of the things that make the real 'Steve Rogers' so—"

"Outdated and stuck in his ways?"

Tony hummed and said, "Delectable," as he turned his head and brushed his lips against the slight scruff of Steve's unshaven cheek. He mouthed at Steve's cheek a moment, darting the tip of his tongue out to touch at the skin, before he turned his head once again so they were pressed cheek- to-cheek.

"Anyway," he said, "point is, I felt like I knew you from the start. Maybe, if I really think about it, it was like we were picking up where we left off. If there's anything to what that screwball says about soul mates and, if I was listening to her and Thor correctly, reincarnation, then, well… Maybe we're more stuck with each other than we originally thought?"

Steve dropped his hand from Tony's arm and shook his head some, resolute. "I don't want you to feel like you're stuck with me, Tony," he said, and Tony rolled his eyes.

"You're deliberately misreading my intent. The universe wants us together, babe. It's always wanted us together. Maybe it's time we stop fighting it and start, you know, embracing it."

"Meaning?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Stop worrying about not being good enough for each other. Stop being afraid we think the other one's stuck with us. I love you, and though you're absolute shit at saying it, I know you love me—"

"Hey! I've told you that before!"

Tony hummed a little and said, "Someday, we're going to get to the bottom of your general emotional constipation. But anyway, my point is that we've dealt with our share of shit that would have completely destroyed other couples. But here we are, curled up together on our bed, still plugging along."

Steve exhaled a breath, and he reached over and rubbed a gentle hand over Tony's belly and said, "You know, we should probably start thinking about names."

"You're deflecting, old man," Tony said and turned to kiss his cheek again.

"No," Steve said with a slight shake of the head, hand still splayed over Tony's abdomen. "Just… don't have anything to add to that."

"So, do you agree or disagree?"

"I don't really want to think about it."

Tony frowned and sat back a little. "Why not?" he asked, his arms' grasp on Steve's shoulders falling away and Steve's hand falling away from his belly.

He watched as Steve swallowed and stared down at the blankets that covered his lap, and he made a weird tic with his mouth and shrugged like he was embarrassed or abashed over something as he picked at a loose string.

"Because there's this…part of me…that's afraid — that thinks — that if I… That I'll lose it again. That something'll happen, and I'll lose it again, and I can't… I can't do that." He swallowed again and shook his head. "I can't do it again. I can't lose…"

Tony frowned as he considered this, and he reached out and took hold of Steve by his chin and turned his face toward him.

"Hey, babe," he said, "look at me."

It took a moment, but Steve seemingly mustered the courage to meet Tony's gaze, and Tony took a quiet inhale of breath at the heartbreak and fear that stared back at him. His eyes did a dance with Steve's for a moment before he said, "Just tell me. 'Yes' or 'no' will do. But just tell me, are you afraid that if you…if you let yourself be happy — with me — that you're going to lose me?"

But Steve just swallowed once more and shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time it happened to me. But now, I… There's just so much more to it now that I don't know if I could…"

He clamped his mouth shut and thinned his lips into a flat line, and Tony kept his focus on Steve's eyes and saw the makings of tears there that he was too proud to shed.

He took a deep inhale of breath through his nose and nodded, and he let go of Steve's chin to better cup Steve's face in his hands.

"Babe," he said, quiet authority lacing his voice, "look at me."

Steve did, and brown and blue once again did a dance together before Tony added, "That's not happening. I'm not going to let it happen. Anyone wants to take me away from you, they're going to have a hell of a fight on their hands. And you know how I can get when someone tries to take away my stuff."

"And people think I'm the possessive one," Steve murmured, but he just reached up and covered one of Tony's hand's with his own.

"Yeah, people have a lot of misconceptions about our relationship. But I'm serious, Steve. I'm not letting you go without a fight, and god forbid _anything_ like what happened to you seventy years ago happens again, I will not rest until you're back where you belong — even if I have to storm the gates of Hell to get you back again."

Steve just nodded, and he let go of Tony's hand to wrap his arms around Tony's frame and pull him into a warm and gentle embrace. Tony went with it, letting go of Steve's face to put his arms around his neck, and they sat there wrapped up in each other for several quiet moments before Steve said, "I do love you, you know."

"I know," he said, Steve's hands splayed over his back as he rubbed in gentle circles. "You're absolute shit at saying it, but I know."

"And I can't lose you—"

"Not going to, babe. Not while I have breath in my body."

Steve nodded again, and he tightened his arms and said, "You know, I just— I can't stop thinking about— If anything like what happened to Bucky ever happened to you, I don't think I could live—"

Tony sat back and put a hand over Steve's mouth. "Stop. Don't even go there. Don't even think about it. It's not going to happen. That was a once-in-a-lifetime freak event that will never, ever be repeated. Besides, you got him back now, and he's… He's going to be OK. He might not be exactly the same Bucky that you remember from before the war, but he's going to be OK. It's going to take some time, though, and babe? I know you love him, and I know you want what's best for him, and I know you just want him to go back to being your buddy from the block, but he's… He's changed, and as I understand it, you've changed as well. So, _please_ , don't put expectations on him that he can't meet. He doesn't want to disappoint you, but I think he's afraid that he can't be exactly what you want him to be."

He dropped his hand away once he determined that Steve wasn't going to argue with him, and Steve exhaled a breath and said, "I just want him to… I just want him to be OK."

"I know," Tony said, "I know, babe, but that's going to take time. Remember my freak-outs after New York? Remember all those crappy suits I built? Remember my nightmares? How long did it take me to come to terms with all that? And that was the events of one day. He's got seventy years of shit to deal with, and he's done some horrible, unspeakable things against his will. I know you want him to be OK, but you might not be the best person to _help_ him with that, if you know what I mean."

He tilted his head some, his brow knitting in something that looked like a strange combination of understanding and disappointment. "I'm too close?"

Tony bent his arm a little so he could reach up and stroke the hairs at the back of Steve's head. "Kinda, yeah. You're still seeing the guy that he was, not the guy that he is. That guy died a long time ago, babe, sort of like how one Steve Rogers died when he went into the ice and when he came out, another one took his place."

Steve shrugged some and said, "You know, I'm really not all _that_ different from what I was before."

"No? So, you're saying that Steve Rogers would be totally cool with all that's gone on? Aliens. Your government trying to kill you. Marrying a dude that looks like a lady. Before you downed that plane, could you have imagined any of that shit? Would you have just shrugged it off as easily as you do now?"

"I wouldn't say I _shrug it off_ —"

"No, but you handle it a damn sight better than probably just about anyone else in your position. Hell, I'm not the same person I was five years ago — and I don't just mean because I've got tits and a vagina and am quite obviously pregnant with a previously dead man's child."

Steve shot him a pointed look tinged with a smile and said, "All right, I probably would have had a little trouble believing something like _that_."

Tony nodded. "Then you understand my point. I'm not the same, you're not the same, and your pal is definitely not the same. We're going to help him, babe, believe me. We're going to get him to some point where he's OK. But it's going to take time, and helpful as I know you like to be, you might not be the best one to do it. You're too close. He needs someone that doesn't have as much invested — maybe someone that's even been through something similar."

"Natasha?" Steve suggested. "I mean Black Widow Natasha, not your alter-ego."

Tony hummed in thought a little and said, "You notice something strange there, too?"

"I think they know each other," Steve said with a slight nod. "I mean beyond him shooting her."

"Yeah," Tony said. "I get that feeling, too. If I'm reading him right, he's got a bit of a soft spot for her. Gotta be something more to it, right?"

Steve smiled a little and met his gaze. "In 1944, I would have said you were being paranoid and reading too much into things. In 2014? I think you're onto something."

"Smart man," Tony said and leaned into to press a kiss against Steve's mouth. Steve returned the kiss in kind, and he fell back against the pillows, Tony atop him. They kissed languidly for some time, slow, teasing, small nips and laughs, Tony straddling Steve's waist as they ran their hands over each other's bodies, and when the teases and giggles had turned to something more salacious and serious, Tony pulled back enough to look Steve in the eyes and murmured a husky, "Make love to me, Captain."

Steve, ever eager to please his lover, did not have to be asked twice.


	20. Chapter 20

* * *

"Sarah Maria."

"Maria Sarah."

"Sarah Maria."

"Maria Sarah."

Tony watched as Steve let out a heavy and frustrated exhale of breath, but Tony folded his arms and said, "I already let you have your way with the boy's name."

"How?" Steve asked and raised an eyebrow.

"You know how," Tony muttered, which earned him nothing but a laugh.

"You're so full of shit. Sarah."

"Maria!"

"Oh, good. I'm glad to see nothing has changed in the last week I wasn't here," Barton said as he came into the kitchen and made straight for the fridge. Steve just nodded 'hello' to him, but Tony turned in his chair and said, "Uh, yeah, hi. Welcome back. Stop eating our food."

Barton pulled the carton of eggs from the fridge and went over to the stove. "Communal kitchen, Stark," he said and grabbed the frying pan Tony had used to fry up his and Steve's breakfast.

"Yeah," Tony said as Barton wiped out the pan and began the process of cooking up some eggs for himself. "Down on the communal floor, which this is not."

" _Tony_ ," Steve murmured.

"No!" Tony said and sat up. " _No!_ No, this is an outrage. I put in a communal floor for you people, and no one uses it. The only time it gets used is when we have parties, and we haven't had one of those since New Year's."

"What's got his panties in a bunch this morning?" Natasha asked as she came into the kitchen. Wilson and Barnes followed behind, and Tony groaned and then pointed at Steve. "This is all your fault."

Steve just grinned and reached out for Tony's finger, and he grabbed it and pressed a kiss to the tip of it.

"You are absolutely pathetic," Tony muttered but quirked a smile at the gesture just the same.

"Either breakfast," Barton said, "or the fact that he and Cap can't seem to agree on a name. I'm going to assume they've started thinking about names for their little science project."

Natasha, Wilson, and Barnes all found seats at the island, and Tony sighed when he realized that Barton looked like he was cooking up enough to feed an army.

"There is another floor specifically designed for this purpose."

" _Tony_ ," Steve said in that stupid, soft voice that he used when Tony was being unreasonable about things, "they like hanging out here with us."

"But no one uses that floor, Steve!"

"Then we can repurpose it for something else."

"So, they're _always_ like this?" Barnes asked Wilson as he motioned between Steve and Tony.

"You mean Tony whines and Cap tries to reason with him?"

"Hey! I do not _whine_."

"No," Natasha said, "you brood manfully."

"I don't have to sit here and take this abuse!"

Though he made absolutely no move to get up from his chair.

"So," Barton said, his back to them as he cooked up eggs at the stove, "baby names, huh?"

"Well," Steve said and stole a sly look at Tony, "we're just throwing some ideas out."

"No," Tony said, " _I_ am throwing ideas out and you're shooting them down."

Steve gave him a flat look. "Sarah."

"Maria."

" _Sarah_."

" _Maria_."

"You know," Wilson said, "you could just use one for the first name and one for the middle name." He winced in a little bit of unease and surprise as Tony and Steve turned to glare at him. "Or not."

"That's the problem, Icarus—"

"Stark," Barton said, "if anyone in this room is in danger of flying too close to the sun, it's you."

But Tony ignored him and continued his point. "The problem is we can't agree on what should be the first and what should be the middle."

"Why?"  Natasha asked.

"Well, Sarah's your mom's name," Barnes said, his gaze on Steve, and Steve smiled a little and said, "Yeah, it was."

"'Maria' was Tony's," Natasha said. "Why not just go with whichever one sounds better?"

"They both sound fine," Tony said at the same time Steve said, "'Sarah Maria' does sound better," and Tony rolled his eyes.

"Look, who cares what something _sounds_ like—"

"Isn't that how you convinced me we should go with 'Stark-Rogers' over 'Rogers-Stark'?"

"No one's going to call her by her full name, Steve!" Tony said, exasperated. "And we're probably overthinking this, anyway. It's probably not a girl—"

"It is," Barton said, and Tony turned to scowl at him.

"How would you know?"

Barton glanced back toward him and motioned at him with the spatula. "You've got tells."

He folded his arms, grimacing just a little at the ache in his breasts. "Care to elaborate?"

Barton shrugged and turned back to the stove. "In the face," he replied. "Your face is fuller, kinda fleshed out. That's one sign."

"Are you saying I have a fat face? Steve! He's telling me I have a fat face."

"Tony, he's not—"

"It's also the way you're carrying."

"Come again?"

"You're, ah, _wider_ than you are _deep_. It's a girl."

"You're full of shit," he grumbled, "and how do you even know this? What, they teach you this in super-secret spy school?"

Barton just chuckled and said, "Gotta be prepared for anything and everything, Stark."

He rolled his eyes again and turned to Natasha, who smiled a little and said, "He has a point."

"OK, when it turns out _not_ to be a girl, I want everyone to remember this conversation. I also want Barton to pay me fifty bucks."

"You're one of the richest men in the world!" Barton said and dumped the scrambled eggs into a serving bowl. "What do you need fifty bucks for?"

"Principle of the thing," he replied as Barton set the bowl down on the table.

"Yeah?" Barton grabbed some plates and some flatware. "Then I expect the same of you when it turns out it _is_ a girl. Wait. Make it a hundred and fifty."

He set the plates and the flatware down, and Natasha and the other two began to serve themselves, and as he took the last chair at the island, Tony said, "You know what? We'll make it interesting. If it's a girl—"

"It is," Barton said airily.

" _If_ it's a girl, I owe you fifteen thousand."

"Tony!" Steve cried, not because it was too exorbitant an amount of money but because he knew Tony was just showing off.

But Barton was intrigued, and he quirked his head some and said, "I have to pay taxes on something like that?"

Tony scoffed. "Not going to have to worry about it. It's not a girl."

Barton shook his head and laughed a little. "You're gonna wish you hadn't said that," he murmured in a sing-song voice, and Wilson turned to Steve and Tony and said, "You figure out a boy's name yet?"

"James Anthony," they replied in unison, which seemed to surprise their breakfast mates, if the collective startle back from the table was anything to go by.

"That was painless," Natasha said, and Tony shrugged.

"First name was easy. I wanted 'Steven' for a middle name, but I lost the fucking coin toss."

"Wait," Wilson said and pointed between them with his fork, "a coin toss for that was OK, but it's a matter of life and death for the girl's name?"

"It's not a matter of life and death," Steve muttered.

"Couldn't you just toss another coin?" Wilson asked.

" _No_ ," they both said in unison again, and Barton looked at the others and said, "I know Stark pisses and moans that we're not on a sitcom, but doesn't it sometimes feel like we are?"

"Petty squabbles and sexual tension you could cut with a knife?" Natasha asked.

"And that's just Cap and Stark," Wilson said.

Barnes looked around at the assembled crew, and he shook his head a little then motioned to the ketchup bottle on the other side of Wilson and said, "Hey, could I have the ketchup?"

Wilson gave a slightly jerky nod, and he reached out and grabbed the bottle. Tony had presumed he'd just pass it over to Barnes, but instead, he popped the cap and began to squirt it onto his own plate. Like an idiot, Tony thought he was just taking some for himself before he gave it to Barnes, but instead, he continued to squirt, the puddle of red goop on his plate getting larger and larger, and Tony watched out of the corner of his eye as Barnes scowled and shook his head some more but continued to watch as Wilson emptied the remainder of the bottle onto his plate, giving a few pathetic shakes and squirts to get the rest of it out. Once he'd gotten out everything that he could, he turned to Barnes and held up the empty bottle of ketchup and said, "Yeah, man, sorry, I just used the last of it."

Barnes glared at him a moment before he turned and began to work at his plate of ketchup-barren eggs, and Sam preened a little in what he must have figured was a victory of sorts as he set the empty bottle down and went back to his own breakfast.

"What the hell was that?" Tony muttered while Steve said, " _Sam_ ," in that disappointed way he was so good at.

"What?" he asked and motioned to his plate. "I needed ketchup!"

And then, to prove his point, he stabbed a couple of bits of scrambled egg onto a fork and then ever-so-lightly touched them at the large, ugly puddle of red glop, taking only the tiniest portion of ketchup onto his eggs.

"You think bottles of Heinz grow on trees?" Tony asked as Wilson shoved the eggs into his mouth.

"No," he said around the bite. "But tomatoes grow on vines."

"That is the poorest excuse for being a dumbass I have ever heard," Tony muttered but left it at that.

" _Anyway_ ," Barton said. He turned his attention to Tony. "You could do something radical and pick a completely different name."

"Like…Marie?" Tony asked, completely serious, but Barton gave him a flat look.

"Like something that isn't like either one of those names. You really want to saddle your kid with a name like that? She'll forever be compared to her grandmothers, who I'm sure you both hold in high regard, and when she doesn't measure up to that— Stark, you know what that's like."

Steve opened his mouth to protest, but Tony just said, "It's _not_ going to be a girl, so why bother worrying?"

"What makes you so sure?" Barton asked, and Tony picked up his glass of orange juice and grinned.

"Because you're so damned sure that it _is_ a girl."

He took a gulp of his juice, and Barton just shrugged. "I'm telling you. You've got all the signs of it being a girl."

"Two 'signs' that are scientifically unproven," he replied, pulling the glass away from his lips and setting it back down on the table.

"You've had your share of breakouts."

"Three, and do I point out that resting murder face you've got going?"

"Often. Didn't you have a problem with morning sickness? Didn't it last all day sometimes?"

He blinked and frowned. "Uh, isn't that standard protocol? Thought that happened to everyone?"

"It's worse if you're having a girl, and the way I remember it, yours was pretty bad," Barton replied. "Also, I'm sure Bruce's told you. What's the fetal heart rate? Is it over 140?"

He shrugged. "I don't know—"

"Yeah," Steve said, almost like he was taking Barton's words into consideration. "Why?"

"Wait, you don't believe this idiot, do you?"

Barton just motioned to them. "Girl. And, my favorite— Cap, what does your little princess over there threaten to send you out into the cold, dark streets of New York at three o'clock in the morning to retrieve?"

"Princess?" Tony asked, highly affronted. "If anything, I am a goddamned _queen!_ "

But Steve exhaled a breath and, with a bemused smile on his face, said, "Some form of chocolate gelato. Either peanut butter or salted caramel."

Barton nodded like Steve had once again proven his point. "Girl."

"Because of gelato?" Tony grumbled.

"Because of craving sweets."

"You're so full of shit, Barton," Tony said and sat back in his chair, arms folded beneath his breasts, which seemed to draw Barton's attention to them.

"Oh, and those rather sizeable knockers you've got over there that weren't nearly that big a couple months ago. Girl."

"This is at least the _third_ time you've made some pervtacular comment about my breasts. Steve—" nodded from Steve to Barton, "—avenge my honor."

But Steve just laughed some, and Wilson said to no one particular, "Hey, could someone pass me the milk?"

Natasha went to retrieve it for him, but Barnes got there before she could, and he grabbed the mostly-full half gallon container and twisted off the top then proceeded to guzzle it, tipping his head back as he chugged it down, somehow still able to glare at Wilson as he did so.

"Oh, _not cool_ ," Wilson said, shaking his head but staring right back at Barnes, who continued to guzzle it down, milk dripping down the sides of his mouth and spilling onto his shirt. He continued to drink until there was no more, a good portion of it drenching his shirt, and he tipped his head back even more to get the last few droplets before he pulled the empty container away. He wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand and let out the most obscene belch Tony had ever heard before he said, "Oh, sorry, I just drank the last of it."

Wilson stared at him like he couldn't believe what had just happened, and he shook his head again and said, " _Not cool_." Natasha rolled her eyes, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips as she watched the antics, and Barton grinned and propped his elbow up on the table to rest his chin in his palm.

"Oh," he said brightly, happily, and maybe even a little too eagerly, "this should be fun." But Steve, that wonderful killjoy, just sighed and said a disappointed, " _Bucky_."

"What?" Barnes asked, faux innocence abounding as he set the empty milk container back on the table. "I got thirsty. There wasn't that much left."

"That container was three-quarters of the way full," Wilson told him.

"Yeah, there was half-a-bottle of ketchup left, too, wasn't there?" Barnes bit back.

Barton looked at Natasha. "Would it be tacky to sell tickets to this?"

"No one's selling tickets to anything," Steve said before Natasha could even begin to formulate an answer.

"Yeah, well, we can't sell tickets to what you and your little princess get up to. I mean, that shit's NC-17."

Tony huffed. "I told you. I am a fucking _queen_."

"Wait," Barnes said, seeming to forget about the milk for the moment as he turned to Tony. "Are you a woman for the rest of your life or something?"

"Dear god, I hope not!"

"Hey!" Steve said, pouty and slightly affronted. "It's not that bad, is it?"

"No," he conceded. "It's not the _worst_ thing in the world ever to happen to me."

" _How_ exactly did this happen again?" Barnes asked and looked between Steve and Tony, still sounding confused as fuck. Poor bastard.

"Don't see _me_ asking these stupid questions," Wilson muttered proudly under his breath. Natasha twitched a small, knowing smile at him but simply took a sip of her coffee instead of calling attention to it.

But Tony ignored whatever was going on there, and he exhaled a breezy breath and said, "Crazy sorceress from the cosmos. Thinks Steve and I are 'soul mates'—" he used finger quotes on the expression, "—and claims that 'soul mates' have some innate urge to be fruitful and multiply. But because Steve and I are two men, she decided to help us with our 'problem,' as she saw it, and—"

He motioned over himself like the rest required no explanation, and Barnes stared at him and frowned a moment then pointed to him and said, "So, _she_ got you like that?"

"No, _she_ turned me into a woman. _Steve_ knocked me up."

"Do you have to say it like that?" Steve asked with a sigh.

"What?"

"'Knocked up.' It sounds so…"

Tony hummed a little and said, "That goes into the same 'bad' pile as 'fucking' doesn't it?"

"What? I've heard Cap say that word a thousand times before," Barton said, and when Wilson and Natasha voiced their agreement — and even Barnes seemed to indicate Steve's knowledge and use of that word went back farther than any of them could have imagined — Tony said, "Steve does not like me to say that we _fuck_ each other."

" _Tony_ —"

"We _make love_ to each other."

As Barnes choked back a laugh, a flush crept over Steve's cheeks and seemed to spread all the way to the tips of his ears. " _Tony_ ," he murmured, embarrassment leeching into his voice.

But Tony reached out and patted Steve's hand. "It's OK, babe. You're a pathetic sap. We knew the secret would come out someday."

Steve just shot him a pitiful and abashed look, but Tony turned to the assembled crowd and said from out of nowhere, "Hey, what name do you think 'Maddie' is short for?"

He didn't know why the name had popped into his head, though seeing Barnes and Natasha sitting next to each other brought back a snippet of a memory associated with that name, but he shook his head and waited for the confusion from the crowd to abate. Everyone else looked perplexed, but Steve just turned to him and said, "'Madge' or 'Madelyn,' maybe? Why?"

"Old-fashioned is the custom now. Is that your pick for a totally-not-Maria name?" Barton said, halfway to shoving a forkful of eggs into his mouth.

"No," Tony said. "Just…thinking." He shook his head again to clear his thoughts then said a firm, "Maria."

"Are we back to this?" Steve muttered. "Sarah."

"Maria."

"Sarah."

" _Maria_."

"Jesus," Barton muttered and pushed his chair away from the table. He left the room, and the others looked at each other in slight confusion for the few moments it took Barton to return, a small paperback book in his hands.

"Here," he said and shoved at the two. "Thought of you two when I saw it."

They both turned their gazes down to what looked to be a baby name book, and from the slightly worn condition, it wasn't something Barton had just picked up at the airport.

"You steal this from someone?" Tony asked as Steve picked up the book and paged through it.

"I have my sources," Barton said as he sat back down in his chair.

"OK, you do know whatever information is in this book can be found much more easily online now, right?" Tony said, and Barton shrugged.

"Might be handier than you think," he replied, and Tony rolled his eyes and turned to see Steve paging through the book, jaw set and brow furrowed in utmost seriousness.

"You're not really taking this man-child's advice, are you?"

"It's still something to think about," Steve said, his eyes never leaving the page as he read over something. "Are we going for meaning or what we like?"

Tony scoffed. "Meaning?"

Steve shot a pointed look at him. "Kinda what we did with the boy's name."

"Yeah, how did you agree on that so quickly?" Wilson asked. "Because I'm pretty sure arguing for you two is like sex you can have in public, and I know how much you two like sex, so…"

Tony grinned at him and nodded lasciviously while Steve said, "First name was easy. We both wanted to name him after our best pal."

Barnes looked genuinely touched by that, a little in awe and maybe even seeming to feel a little like it was undeserved while Wilson muttered, "Oh, _come on!_ " and dropped his fork against the plate in protest. Barnes smiled at Steve and said a sincere, "Thanks," to him before the look turned smug as he turned to Wilson and gave a very proud and taunting shrug of his shoulders to him.

"No," Wilson. "No, no, that's— That's totally—" He looked between Steve and Tony. "I demand a recount."

"Whelp, _someone's_ a sore loser," Barnes said and shoved a forkful of eggs in his mouth. Barton, seeming to figure the pissing contest was over, turned to Steve and Tony in confusion. "Wait, your 'best pal'? Then why didn't you go with 'Clint'?"

" _Best pal_ ," Tony stressed, "not biggest pain in our ass."

Barton still looked confused. "Uh, I thought you said you _wanted_ 'Steven' as the middle name?"

Steve just shot Barton the Stare of Disapproval, and Natasha bit her lips as though to hide her smile. Wilson tried to hide his laugh behind his glass of orange juice. Barnes just said, "Jeez, Stevie, they really got your number, don't they?"

Steve just looked among his assembled friends and said, "Leave me alone. I'm old."

"Yeah," Barnes said, "and I'm older than you, so…"

"Wait!" Barton said. "Cap's not the oldest anymore? He lost his seniority?"

"I'm still the leader of the Avengers," he said and raised an eyebrow at Barton.

"Yeah, but we all had to listen to you before because you're the oldest. I mean, not counting Thor, but he doesn't count 'cause he's an alien. You're not the oldest any longer, so we don't have to listen to you."

"That's some iron-clad logic you've got there, Barton," Tony said, and Barnes sat back and put his hands up in defense.

"Hey, I'm not anyone's elder statesman or anything. Don't come looking to me for sage advice or anything."

"Didn't plan on it," Wilson said then made a pointed effort to dip his eggs into the puddle of ketchup and take a savory bite. "Mmm…" he said to Barnes's eye-rolling annoyance. "So good."

"Yeah, well, maybe if I'd lost out on the baby-naming, I'd have to comfort myself with a pool of ketchup, too."

Wilson went to protest, but Barton said, "Yeah, it's not a boy, so they're not naming it after you, either. And I don't think you get why we keep the Cap around here."

Steve raised an eyebrow at him. "Why _do_ you keep the Cap around here?"

Barton shrugged. "Mostly so Stark gets laid. He's much easier to deal with when he's sexually satisfied. More inclined to make cool things for us, too."

"You _just_ paid him a compliment and you don't even realize it," Tony said, and Barton furrowed his brow.

"How?"

"I'm _very_ picky when it comes to sexual satisfaction, so saying Steve is so good at sex he's able to please someone like me is probably the best compliment you've ever given to him."

He glanced at Steve and saw his face had gone a shade of pink. "Can we _please_ stop talking about this?" he asked.

"Why are you embarrassed?" Tony asked. "You should be shouting that shit from the rooftops. In fact, maybe I'll go do it for you."

He pushed his chair back and struggled to his feet, but Steve snagged his wrist and pulled him back before he could get two steps away from the table.

"What? No. I have to go tell New York how fucking phenomenal you are in the sack." He glanced to the others and said, "Look, fellas, cunnilingus? It's a thing, and it's _awesome_. Like, I cannot begin to tell you how fucking _awesome_ it is. You want your ladies to be happy?" He put his hands on Steve's shoulders and gave them a squeeze. " _Definitely_ get some pointers on how to do it from this guy right here."

He bent down and pressed a kiss against the crown of Steve's head, and Steve buried his face in his hands and muttered, "I can't believe you told them that."

He hummed a little in intrigue and said, "Believe it, babe," before he slid his hands around Steve's shoulders and leaned down a little further to nuzzle at his neck.

"And I thought they were horny and gross when Stark was still a dude," Barton muttered, and Wilson hummed his agreement. Barnes could only be bothered to say a confused, "Sex tips from _Steve? Really?_ "

"Lot's changed since Hydra got their hands on you," Barton said. "The Pill. Free love. Trickle- down economics. The McRib. Your little virginal pal turned into a sex god."

Steve just groaned and buried his face deeper into his hands, if that was possible, and Wilson reached out to squeeze Steve's arm in sympathy as Tony continued to nuzzle his neck.

"Look, man, I know you're embarrassed," Wilson said, "but the proof that you have sex slaps every single one of us in the face every time Tony walks into a room. And if Tony seems to think you're the best he's ever had—"

"He is," Tony said, pulling his mouth away from Steve's neck long enough to chime in.

"—then maybe you should just own it, you know?"

Steve sighed, and he pulled his hands away from his face and said, "Why is it always _me_ that we talk about? How come it's never any of you?"

"Because you turn fifty shades of red when we talk about you like this," Natasha said, humor lacing her voice, "and it's funny to see how many different colors we can get you to turn each time."

"It's just not something you're supposed to discuss in front of other people!"

Barton turned to Barnes. "Your move, grandpa. What's your opinion on this?"

Barnes snorted a laugh. "I don't give a shit what you talk about," he said, and Barton nodded and turned back to Steve.

"OK, your position in the group as grumpy old man is intact."

"Oh, thank you," Steve deadpanned. "I was afraid there for a minute."

Tony glanced up in time to see Barnes smirk and shake his head, and he looked at Steve and said with a bit of an awed smile on his face, "Helluva group you got yourself involved with here, pal."

"Yeah," Steve said, and Tony could actually hear the smile in his voice. "They are."

~*~

Steve could be _such_ a fucking killjoy sometimes.

He hadn't forgotten about what the doctor had asked for, and when Bruce showed up in the penthouse later that morning after the other moochers had left to do whatever it was they did when there wasn't any Avenging to do, Steve appeared from out of nowhere (OK, actually he just happened to come downstairs at that point in time) and said, "Bruce, Doctor Ganford wanted Tony to see about getting some blood and urine tests done. Tony would feel more comfortable if you could do them for him."

Bruce just stopped in his tracks as he came out of the kitchen with a granola bar in one hand and a mug of tea in the other, and he blinked and looked from Steve to Tony, who was rolling his eyes so hard he almost detached his retinas and said, "I'm knocked up, Steve. I'm not mute."

"I wish you wouldn't say it like that. And I know you, and I know you weren't about to ask Bruce if you could help it."

"Uh," Bruce said, sounding as nervous as he looked, "you know, there's probably a lab you could go to—"

Tony sighed and snuggled down into where he lay on the couch — comfortably until Steve had opened his big, fat gob. "Yeah, but I'd rather not have to deal with that shit if I can help it. Look, I don't know why I even _need_ these tests to begin with—"

"Well, it probably would be a good idea. To make sure everything is progressing normally—" Bruce started to say, but Tony whined and pushed his head back into the throw pillow.

"You're supposed to be on my team, Brucie!"

Bruce shared a look with Steve before he turned to Tony and said, "I am, Tony, but I agree it would be a good thing to run some tests to make sure everything's going the way it should. You _look_ healthy enough, but it doesn't mean that you _are_."

"Ugh, fine," he muttered. He scrambled to sit up, grumbling when he struggled more than he wanted to especially in front of other people. He got situated, sitting on the edge of the cushion, and said, "OK, let's get this bullshit over with."

He made to stand up, but Bruce put his arms out to him as though to stop him and said, "Uh, you usually have to fast for twelve hours before they draw blood."

Tony just blinked at him. "Fast? Fast what?"

"Tony, don't be obtuse," Bruce said. "You know what it means. No food or liquids for twelve hours. Just sips of water."

Tony didn't think it was purely coincidence that he got a few jabs in the gut at that. "Yeah, I'm gonna have to agree with my petulant parasitic offspring at that," he said and rubbed his abdomen some. "I can't eat? Bullshit. Do you know how fucking _hungry_ I get anymore? Like, if you stuck a forty-eight ounce Porterhouse in front of me right now, I could probably polish that bad boy off in five minutes and _still_ look for more." He looked up to where Steve now stood not too far from Bruce and said, "I'm going to assume that's your fault somehow."

Steve just shook his head, and Bruce said, "Ideally, you'd do it overnight so you wouldn't have to _worry_ about starving."

Tony looked around for a clock and finally found his phone sitting on the coffee table. He reached out to grab it, and he checked the time and saw it was only late morning. He sighed and set the phone down and said, "Fine. Can we do it tomorrow then? Bright and early tomorrow morning, and then _you_ —" he pointed at Steve, "—are going to take me out for the biggest, best breakfast my ill-gotten gains can buy. But you're the one that's actually going to hand over the dough because you're a gentleman like that."

Steve folded his arms, his hands tucked into his armpits, and he tilted his head forward some and made like he was looking at Tony over a pair of non-existent glasses and said, "You really think we should do that?"

He waved off his concern. "I don't even care anymore," he muttered tiredly.

And he _was_ tired. He was tired of the whole thing, the whole game, and the whole charade. He was tired of pretending. It had been fun for a while, but it was too exhausting an endeavor to keep up. Yes, he was still concerned what Hydra might do with the information that there was a little super soldier in the works, but he just wanted to go out and stroll the sidewalks of New York with Steve and not have to worry about putting on a blonde wig or pretending to be someone named 'Natasha.'

He just wanted things to go back to some boring sense of normalcy. He was getting too old for this shit.

Steve shook his head some. "I just don't think it's a good idea…"

He kept talking, but Tony sighed a little and sank back against the couch. He rested his head against the cushion, and he closed his eyes and blocked out what Steve was saying and instead tried to tell himself that he wasn't a prisoner and he didn't have to stay in this big, ugly building because he was a wanted…woman. Yeah, definitely a 'woman.' That's what he looked like, wasn't it? A woman, one wanted by every media outlet in the country and then some for an 'exclusive' interview about just _what_ was going on in Avengers Tower, and just _what_ had happened to Tony Stark and just _how long_ were she and the Captain together, and was that the Captain's baby? Was she just a surrogate for them? Was this the product of an affair? Was she trying to exploit him for something? Just what were her aims?

Oh, and also wanted by Hydra because this was the child of a super soldier and a goddamned living legend.

Would anyone ever believe the truth? Would anyone ever believe the reality of the situation? That Tony Stark had gotten turned into a woman and gotten knocked up by Steve Rogers because they were both idiots and neither one had given any consideration to using a fucking condom?

God, how fucked up his life was.

Steve was still talking, still laying out his reasoning for why he didn't want to take Tony out for breakfast, and Tony sighed and said, "Fine."

That stopped Steve cold.

Tony picked his head up to look at Steve, and he watched as Steve stared at him and blinked, his mouth opening and closing a few times like a fucking guppy fish because he couldn't seem to formulate the words he wanted, and he finally said a somewhat unsure, "OK— Are you OK? Are you feeling OK?"

"Fine," he said with a lazy shrug. "Just peachy."

Suspicion clouded Steve's face, his eyes narrowing and his lips pursing into a frown. "What's wrong?"

"Hmm? Nothing. Why would you think something's wrong?"

"Because you gave in _way_ too easily. Me telling you I don't want to take you out for breakfast because I don't want those vultures from the press descending on you and trying to make this out to be something worse than it actually is should have been good for at _least_ fifteen minutes of argument from you. Instead, you just tell me 'fine' like you don't care."

But he just shrugged again and said, "What do you want me to say, Steve? I'm not going to win this one. I know I'm not going to win this one. I'm stuck in this fucking building until everything goes back to normal — and I don't know how we're going to explain everything that's happened once it does, but that's a problem for Future Tony, I guess."

Concern had slid into Steve's visage, softening the suspicion. "Tony, you're not a—"

"Prisoner in my own goddamned Tower? Yeah, Steve, I am. Whatever. It's not like I can do anything about it. I should just take the word 'choice' and the entire meaning of it out of my vocabulary. Would save me a lot of trouble in the long run."

And now the suspicion had complete abated, and all that remained was concern and worry.

" _Tony_ ," he said, his voice soft. He dropped his arms and went over to him, moving the phone so he could sit down on the coffee table opposite him. "You're not a…" He sighed a little and dropped his head a moment before he looked up at Tony with newfound vigor. He reached out and took hold of Tony's hands and squeezed them tight. "I don't want to— I don't want them to touch you. I don't want them near you. I don't want them to have anything to do with you. But I don't want you to feel like you're trapped here, either. You're not trapped. You're never trapped. I'm never going to trap you. If you want to go out for breakfast, I will take you out for breakfast. I can't promise I won't punch someone that shoves a camera or a microphone in our faces, but I will take you out."

He took this in, and he tweaked a smile and shrugged and said, "You don't have to—"

"I will. I promise."

"Eh, maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to go out?" he said after a moment's deliberation. "Last time that happened, I ended up getting caught on camera admitting to being knocked up with Captain America's love child."

Steve sighed and dropped his head once more before he looked back up at Tony again and said, "Do you _have_ to say it like that?"

"Yeah, you're right. We're married, so the 'love child' thing doesn't actually fit."

"Well, that, too, but the 'knocked up' part. Do you have to— Can't you just say 'pregnant'? Or 'expecting' or—"

"Haven't we already gone over this? You deal with it your way, and I'll deal with it mine."

"I mean, you make it sound like you're _in trouble_ when you say it like that. Like I got you _in trouble_ or something."

Sometimes, Steve, that overgrown sap, was the perfect embodiment of 'You can take the boy out of the '40s…'

"Nah, not in trouble. Not anymore, anyway." He wiggled his left hand in Steve's grasp. "Got the license to prove it. I don't know if it counts if it's conceived out-of-wedlock…"

Steve shook his head. "Just when it's born, and I made an honest fella out of you."

'Honest fella.' Jesus, what his life had become…

"Took you long enough," Tony muttered, but he twitched a smile at Steve to let him know he was teasing him.

Steve, however, decided to fight fire with fire.

"Took _me_ long enough? _You're_ the one that said we couldn't get married until you'd finished planning your ridiculous bash—"

" _Our_ ridiculous bash, Steve! It was for both of us."

"And five hundred of our closest friends."

"In lieu of bringing wedding gifts for the groom and groom because that would just have been really tacky — I'm a fucking billionaire — I was going to insist that guests make donations to the charity of my choice, and if they didn't, they wouldn't be able to come."

Steve snorted a laugh. "How altruistic of you."

"I thought so."

Someone cleared his throat.

Tony and Steve blinked and frowned at each other then turned to the side where Bruce stood, granola bar shoved into a shirt pocket, hand at the back of his neck, and grimace twisting his face.

"Do you still need me?" he asked, sounding like he very much wanted to leave. "Can I go?"

Tony waved him away and said, "Go. Play with your spores and fungus…things…" but Steve said, "Actually, the doctor wants Tony to have an ultrasound as well."

Tony groaned and rolled his eyes. "For the love of— You're a fucking _killjoy_ , Steve!"

"Uh, OK?" Bruce said and blinked at them. "I'm not sure what—"

Tony huffed out a breath and said, "Well, _clearly_ , you're going to do that, too."

Bruce moved his hand from the back of his neck to hold the mug in both hands, like it was somehow doing something to calm him and maybe keep the Other Guy at bay. "I'm sorry, _clearly?_ Wha— _Where_ am I getting an ultrasound machine?"

"Same place you got it back at the beginning of this whole mess," Tony said with a roll of his eyes.

Bruce let out a heavy and tired sigh. "Denise. I borrowed it off of Denise."

Steve nodded, but Tony frowned and said, "Uh, who?"

"Denise Ganford," Bruce said and reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "You just saw her, like, a week ago."

Tony turned to Steve for confirmation. "That's her name?"

Steve nodded.

"Huh. OK, well, why don't you—"

Bruce dropped his hand and looked point-blank at Tony. " _Or_ — and here's an absolutely crazy suggestion — you can let her do it. She does it. She's very good at it. Again, _she_ would know what to look for more than I would."

You know, maybe Steve's insistence on Tony not going out much was a blessing in disguise? He motioned to Steve. "Steve won't let me out of the building."

Steve sighed out a breath. "Tony, I think you could go out for something like—"

"Nope! Not allowed. You said. Can't go. Someone might ambush me. Wouldn't want any vulture with a camera or a microphone ambushing me, would you, Steve? I thought you loved me. Would you really want me to go out there and get caught? There'll be pictures of me all over the internet Steve — really _bad_ pictures with sexist and derogatory headlines because that shit sells like hotcakes."

And then, because he was a dick, he put a hand to his belly — making sure to note that Steve caught the action — and rubbed it a little.

"And the things they'll say about this poor, innocent child that never asked to be conceived in the first place? Breaks my heart, Steve. It absolutely breaks my heart."

Steve stared at him, flat, like he knew exactly what Tony was doing, but he still closed his eyes and exhaled a breath through his nose then opened his eyes again and looked at Bruce.

"I'm so sorry."

Bruce had a look on his face like he was equal parts amused and disappointed, and he shook his head a little and said, "That's…OK. It's not your fault."

"Yeah, it kind of is," Tony countered then shrugged. "Oh, well. What are you going to do? So!" He looked at Bruce. "Doctor Banner, seeing as my husband is a fucking killjoy pain-in-the-ass — and, at this moment, not in the _good_ way — when can I schedule my appointment with you?"

Bruce closed his eyes and sighed out a breath. "Let me make a call," he muttered then shuffled off to the elevator, mug in hand and cellophane of the granola bar wrapper crinkling as he pulled it out of his pocket.

Once the doors had closed, Steve just gave him a _look_ , and Tony smiled and said with an easy shrug, "You have no one to blame for that but yourself. And, to be honest, you're supposed to be a tactical genius. You should have seen this coming a mile away."

"I know," Steve said with a sigh. "Well, you are the smarter of the two of us."

Tony snorted a laugh. "Yeah, that's not about intelligence. That's about which one of us is the bigger asshole, and let's face facts, babe. In that realm, I've got you beat by a country mile."

"Hey!" Steve said, his face going serious. "I won't have you talking about the mother of my child that way."

Tony groaned and rolled his eyes. "Are you goddamned…"

But Steve just shook his head. "The mother of my child may be a lot of things, but she's? He's?" He blinked and frowned then continued, " _Not_ an asshole. A spoiled brat that gets away with _way_ too much, but not an asshole."

Steve's hold on his hands had gone slack by this point, and so Tony reached out and patted his cheek. "Aw, that's sweet, babe, but I'm still going to fight you on that. The 'mother' of your child is a complete asshole, and he wears it like a badge of honor."

Steve still looked less-than-pleased by this characterization, so Tony reached out and pecked a kiss against his lips.

Steve wasn't too proud to kiss back.

As it turned out, Doctor Ganford wasn't able to lend Bruce an ultrasound machine — well, not one she was willing to have transported back to the Tower.

But there was a free period of time for it that afternoon. They would just have to go over to her office to use it.

"No," Tony said unambiguously when Bruce told him this around lunchtime.

"Yes," Steve replied with a curt nod of the head.

Bruce looked between them, almost like he wasn't sure which one to listen to, and Tony turned to Steve and said, " _No._ I'm not—"

"Tony," he said with a somewhat pained sigh, sitting in his chair at the kitchen island and pressing his face into his hand. "We've gone over this. It's a good idea." He pulled his hand away and looked point-blank at Tony. "We just want to — we _all_ want to — make sure you're OK, that everything is OK."

"Look, Tony," Bruce said, and Tony looked up at him. "If it makes you feel more comfortable, I'll do it. I can go over and do it for you. Just as a warning, Denise would have to be in the room, too, but I'll be the one to actually perform it on you, OK?"

Tony exhaled a breath, his shoulders slumping. Did he have a _choice?_

"Fine," he muttered. "Let's go and get this over with."

He started to stand from his chair, but Bruce said, "Actually, it's not until the end of the day."

Tony whined a little and sat back down.

"I'm sorry, Tony, it's better that way. Her office closes at five today, so we can go over and do it then."

"So, we're doing this after-hours?"

"Yeah."

"You _just_ said 'this afternoon.'"

Bruce stumbled a bit like he'd been caught up in something before he said, "Well, _technically_ , it's still the afternoon."

Fucking technicalities. He was taking 'technicality' lessons from that fucker, Steve, wasn't he?

Bruce then reached into the fridge and handed a bottle of water over to Tony. "Here," he said, and Tony stared at him a moment before he took the bottle from him.

"What? Why?"

Bruce was quiet a moment like he was trying to get his phrasing exactly right, and he simply said, "Just…drink a lot of water."

In response, Tony twisted the cap off the bottle and took a sip.

Now, Tony had every intention of working on some projects that afternoon, but Steve made an off-handed mention of going down to the gym to get a workout in, and Tony decided that watching Steve get all hot and sweaty was a much more enticing prospect than actually _working_.

So, to Steve's bemusement, he followed him down to the gym and sat and watched as he ran through some warm-ups then worked at punching the shit out of one of the heavy bags (splitting it at one point and murmuring a not-exactly-earnest, "Sorry," as sand poured from it; Tony waved off his admitted lack of concern and said it was nothing and he'd get it fixed for him).

Afterward, he sat on Steve's back to provide a counter-weight for him as he did pushups, pouring the remains of another bottle of water down his throat as his vantage point moved up and down with each pushup Steve did. He gave a salute to some of the others when they showed up to use the equipment, Natasha smiling a little, Barnes raising an eyebrow before he shook his head, and Barton, who groaned as he dropped his bag of…junk?...on the floor and said, "What did we tell you about keeping that shit to your own floor?"

"Wait," he said and capped the bottle of water, Steve counting out his hundredth pushup beneath him, "you think this is some sort of foreplay for us?"

Barton put his hands up. "I don't want to know what it is."

"It's exactly what it looks like," he said as Steve grunted out his hundred-fifth pushup. "Steve's doing pushups, and I'm sitting on top of him to make it a little harder for him— The _pushups_! Not his dick," he countered when he realized they'd all — even Barnes — taken it the other way.

OK, _maybe_ he'd said it that way on purpose so they would take it that way.

Barton stared at him a moment then said, "Whatever," and motioned to Barnes. "Come on, I'll show you where the weights are."

They moved to another part of the large gymnasium, and Natasha stood and watched them depart before she stepped over to where Steve and Tony were on the mat, Steve at his hundred-twentieth pushup. She stood above them, arms folded but a gentle smile on her face as she said, "So, I hear you're going for an ultrasound later."

Tony groaned and rolled his eyes, jostling a little and almost losing his balance as Steve jerked some beneath him — almost like he was warning him against saying something stupid.

"Can't keep anything a secret in this place," he grumbled then righted himself again. "Yes," he said, "it's been suggested to me that it would be a good idea. I don't know why. I can tell you things are fine. Things are totally fine. I'd be the first person to know if they weren't. Trust me. As was assured to me by some space fairy, this thing inside me dies, I die, too, and—" He put a hand to his abdomen to feel for anything, and almost on cue, he felt a little thump. "Yep, still living."

Natasha's face went a little softer. "That's not the only reason to do it. Honestly, maybe if you see it, it'll make it a little realer to you."

Tony blinked at her, and Steve grunted out, "Hundred- _thirty_ ," beneath him.

"Uh, look, it's not happening to you—"

Something sharp came over Natasha's face for only a moment before it was replaced once again by gentle concern.

Oh, that was something to file away for another time.

"—so you can't really _know_ , I guess," he continued, pretending like he hadn't seen the momentary shift of Natasha's countenance, "but trust me. I can feel it. I can feel everything. I can feel something growing inside of me. I know it's alive, and I know it's A-OK. I don't need to drink a gallon of water and have Bruce poke me in the gut with some medieval torture device in order to know that."

"Don't you want to know what it is?"

"Uh…I think it's a human fetus."

She exhaled a breath through her nose and shook her head a little. "No, I mean don't you want to know if it's a boy or a girl."

" _Boy_ ," Steve gritted out in lieu of counting out one-thirty-seven.

She cocked an eyebrow. "You know already?"

"Eh," Tony said and shrugged. "Not _exactly_. Just more…hopeful, I guess."

She nodded. "You want a boy."

"Yeah."

"You have a gut feeling what it is?"

Tony paused to think about this for a moment. Honestly, until that night at the cabin, he really hadn't given any thought to it either way. He wasn't thinking about it in those terms. He wasn't _really_ thinking about it as anything more than a burden and something done to him without any say in the matter.

But thinking about it now — really putting his mind to it and trying to get a gut feeling for the situation — he did have a hunch or a modicum of intuition or something like that, but it wasn't…it wasn't the answer he wanted or was looking for. Not that there was anything _wrong_ with… But not in this instance. Not here, not now. It was a boy. It had to be. And besides, Steve wanted a boy, and if Steve wanted a boy, Tony would give him a boy.

Jesus, what a weird fucking thing to tell himself. _Never_ in his wildest dreams could he ever have imagined giving himself _that_ kind of assurance about something.

"Boy," he said with a nod as Steve gritted out, " _One-forty-two_."

"Well, isn't that convenient?" she said, a bemused twist to her lips. Tony shrugged, bouncing just a little with each pushup Steve did.

"And yet, you had no problem choosing a boy's name but can't agree on what to call it if it's a girl."

"Yeah, well, it's not like we're going to need the girl's name anyway. I think it's more important that we agree on a boy's name."

This time, Natasha shrugged. "And yet, picking the right girl's name seems to be more important to you."

"No. It was just easier with the boy. We both wanted 'James.'"

"You flipped a coin for the middle name."

He shrugged again.

"But you can't do that for the girl's."

"Look, we know _what_ names we want. We just can't figure out the order we want."

"Because the order's important to you."

" _One-fifty_ ," Steve grunted out and collapsed onto his stomach. He turned his face to the side, his cheek pressed against the mat, and said, "OK, honey, you can get off of me now."

"Oh, but you're so comfortable to sit on," he said but slid off Steve's back to sit on the mat beside him.

Steve sucked in a breath and pushed himself up to sit beside Tony, and he looked up at Natasha and said, "It's a just-in-case. The boy's name was easy. We knew what we wanted—"

"You flipped a coin for the middle name. You have to make sure your girl's name is perfect."

"We just can't agree on the order," Tony said. "That's it. It doesn't mean— It's not more _important_ to us to have the 'right' girl's name. Stop making it sound like we both secretly hope it's a girl. We don't. We want a boy. It's a boy."

But Natasha just smiled at them, knowing, soft, like she knew something they hadn't yet admitted to themselves.

"OK," she murmured, almost like she was humoring them. But she sobered a little and directed her attention at Tony and said, "Tomorrow, why don't I show you a few things you can do to protect yourself? I know you know how to fight in your other body, but this one's a little different. I don't know if you've got the hang of certain things yet." She shrugged a little. "Might be good to know."

He blinked at her. Hadn't he just been thinking about asking her…? "Yeah, OK," he said, deciding not to think about it too hard.

She nodded and produced another bottle of water from…somewhere. Had she been holding it the whole time?

"Here. Drink up. Going to need it for later."

He grumbled but still took it from her and cracked the cap after she'd taken the empty bottle from him.

He showered up with Steve because why the hell not, and when Steve went to change back into his hipster frat boy ensemble, Tony took the clothes away from him and said, " _No_."

" _No?_ " Steve asked with a laugh.

"No! Dear god, I am burning these clothes. Do not ever leave this _room_ dressed like that ever again, do you understand me?"

Steve considered him a moment, standing there in a gray pair of boxer briefs and a tight, tight undershirt. He tilted his head in thought and said, "Are you sure?"

"Huh?" he said and made a disgusted face as he tossed the offending clothes aside. "You want me to dress like I normally dress?"

"Like an actual non-asshole human being? Yeah, I—"

But Steve shook his head. "That's not what I mean. I mean you want me to… You don't want me to disguise myself? When we go out, you want me to look just like…"

And suddenly, he got what Steve was asking.

Did they just want to go out that afternoon looking exactly as they did? No disguises, no trying to sneak around, no trying to throw people off the scent. Did he want them to go out — to an _obstetrician's_ — looking like Captain America and the mysterious brunette he'd been seen around town with over the course of the past couple months? The one the media was already speculating was pregnant with his child?

They could try it. They could disguise themselves and try to sneak around and get to the doctor's office without anyone knowing. But Tony was…tired. He was so tired of that. He'd been pretending his whole life. It had become second-nature to him.

But he'd grown tired of pretending. He didn't want to pretend any longer. He'd stopped having to pretend so much once Iron Man and then the Avengers had come to pass. He'd become the hero he'd always hoped he could be deep down — the kind Howard had assured him he was never good enough for.

Captain America. Now, there was a hero! Cap could do anything — was the greatest man ever to walk the face of the earth. Tony was no better than the layer of filth on the bottom of Cap's boot — the one he used to crush Nazi and Hydra scum with back during the war. You should be more like him, Tony. Why can't you be more like him? Why? 'Cause you're not good enough, boy.

You'll never be good enough.

"Hey," Steve said, startling Tony from his thoughts. "You sure about this?"

Tony blinked and looked up at Steve — the man Howard had revered to the point of a sick obsession — his eyes skirting over the concern he saw etched over Steve's — _Cap's_ — face. Concern for him. Worry for him. Because Captain America — Steve — loved him and was concerned for him and only wanted to do right by him. Because he was proud of him. Because he trusted him and wanted him to have his back. Because Steve might have been the leader of the Avengers, but there was no questioning who the second-in-command was, even now. Because he was a hero to him. Because he loved him.

Fuck you, Howard. Fuck you to hell and back.

He heaved out a breath and admitted what he'd known at the back of his mind from the moment he'd practically told that reporter he was pregnant with Captain America's baby.

"I think… I think it's time. I think it's time we start to let the cat out of the bag."

Steve took a deep breath and nodded, exhaling the breath in resignation rather than relief. "If that's what you want," Steve said.

"No," Tony replied and shook his head. "Not really. But I don't think we really have a choice."

"And Hydra?"

He considered this a moment and shrugged. Sure, he would definitely paint himself with a gigantic target on his back, but—

"Well, I like to think if anything happens, they'd have the full force of the Avengers breathing down their necks."

Steve grinned at him, slyly but with a sharp element of protectiveness. "They lay one finger on you, the sons-of-bitches won't know what hit them."

Fuck you _so much_ , Howard.

So, they forewent the disguises. Even Bruce didn't even bother, somehow looking rumpled in what Tony knew was freshly-laundered clothing, his hair in slight disarray as they made their way to the doctor's office late that afternoon. Strangely enough, though the great thing about New York was, by-and-large, most people didn't care. Most people would leave you alone. They had their own lives and concerns to deal with, and there was relatively little fawning to be had compared to a lot of the other places he'd gone to over the years.

And maybe he had previously misjudged just _how much_ New Yorkers cared about something like this, because he and Steve and Bruce all went over together, and from the safety of his dark-tinted sunglasses, Tony could stare point-blank at anyone he thought was staring at them a little too long.

But no one did.

The cab driver couldn't be bothered. The people on the street couldn't be bothered. The people in the office lobby as they waited for the elevator couldn't be bothered. The only thing anyone asked when they were crowded into the elevator together was if Steve would hit the button for a given floor. By the time they got to the floor, Tony didn't know if he was relived or insulted by it. Nobody had paid attention. Nobody had cared. Nobody had ambushed them.

Maybe in trying _not_ to be obvious, they'd been even more obvious than they might have been regardless?

He followed Steve down the hall, Bruce bringing up the rear, and Steve held the door for them once they got to the doctor's suite. They stepped into the waiting room, which, at three minutes after five, was completely devoid of patients. Even the girls behind the window were gone, the only one left being Doctor Ganford, who was looking at something on a computer, her face drawn in seriousness, before she looked up and smiled at her arrivals.

"There you are," she said and glanced back at her computer like she was closing down something. "I was just beginning to worry." She motioned to the door beside the window and said, "Come on through. Got the office to ourselves." And then she looked at Steve and said, "There should be a deadbolt on the door out there. Would you mind turning that?"

Steve nodded and did as he was asked, and Tony looked at her and said, "Uh, there a chance people might try to come in or—?"

"No, not really," she said and waved them through again, "but I know how sensitive you are about this. I thought you'd like to take every precaution."

Tony nodded and followed Bruce through the door, Steve joining them a moment later, and just as the doctor began to lead them down another hallway, Tony said, "Uh, you mind if I use the bathroom first? Bruce made me drink a lot of water and, not to be too blunt, but I've got to piss like a racehorse."

"I made you do it the last time, too. You just don't remember because you were freaked out about dying," Bruce murmured, but Tony ignored that and instead looked at the doctor for instructions to the nearest restroom.

But the doctor smiled and laughed a little and said, "Then we should be able to get some very good images," and continued to make her way down the hall.

Tony blinked, stopping in his tracks. "Are you—?" He looked first to Bruce and then to Steve. "Did she—?"

"Tony, come on," Bruce said with a sigh. "It's not going to hurt. At most, it'll be uncomfortable. Like last time, remember?"

"Yeah, that sounds like fun," he muttered, but Steve just put a hand to his lower back and steered him down the hall in the direction the doctor had gone.

They went into a small room with a table and a machine similar to the one Bruce had borrowed earlier in the year when he'd first informed Tony of this crazy impossibility, and after the doctor and Bruce settled on what exactly they were doing, the doctor smiled at him and said, "OK, Tony, if you would get up on the table."

Tony eyed it warily for a moment before he handed his bag over to Steve and then squared his shoulders and stepped up onto the riser then sat down on the hard vinyl, the paper crinkling beneath him. He lay back against the pillow as the doctor directed him to and then pulled up his shirt and pulled the waistband of his pants down some when he was directed to do that, his belly — because, honestly, that's what it was now — sticking up in the air.

Steve stood off to the side like he didn't want to intrude, and Bruce said, "Come on over, Steve."

Steve, holding Tony's bag, said a nervous, "Are you sure?"

"Steven," Tony said and held his arm out, "get over here and hold my hand!"

Steve set the bag down on a chair then took the few steps over to meet him, and he took hold of Tony's hand and stood beside him, frowning as he watched the screen.

"OK, Tony," Bruce said and squirted some of that gel onto his abdomen. "Just relax."

Tony had expected cold like last time, but it was surprisingly warm…which didn't do much to set his bladder at ease. He grimaced a little and then grimaced a little more as Bruce set the wand down on his abdomen and moved it around, pressing in either to get some pictures or torture him. He wasn't sure which.

"How long is this going to take?" he asked.

"Hopefully not too long," the doctor said, smiling as she stood at Bruce's free elbow and directed him where to focus the image. "Are you two going to want to know the sex of the baby?"

Tony hesitated, and Steve seemed a little surprised as he asked, "Could you do that? I mean, you can tell that just from this?"

He motioned to what they were doing, and the doctor nodded and said, "With about ninety-five percent certainty."

Steve whistled, marveling almost at what he'd just heard. "Jeez, back in my day, you just kinda had to wait 'til it was born to know if it was a boy or a girl. Sorta made it a little more fun — more like a present to open, I guess." He shrugged, a little embarrassed. "I don't know," he added and looked down to Tony. "It's up to you."

"You'd rather be surprised?" he asked then made a face as Bruce pressed down in a certain spot that made him wince and try to squeeze his legs together tighter to keep from having an accident of any kind.

Women, as it turned out, had to be careful about that sort of stuff. The first time he'd sneezed with a full bladder had been a surprising and embarrassing wake-up call for him.

Steve shrugged again, like he was ashamed of what he felt. "Kinda wouldn't mind a surprise. I mean, I kinda want a boy — I mean I _do_ want a boy — but I just… I don't want to _know_ until…"

Tony turned to Bruce and the doctor. "If you figure it out, don't tell us. We'll wait and be surprised."

Doctor Ganford nodded her understanding then pointed to something on the screen, and Bruce moved the wand over in the direction she'd pointed.

Tony lay his head back and stared at the ceiling blocks above, a very serious-looking Steve leaning over him as he tried to watch the screen and see exactly what Bruce and the doctor were seeing. Not that he'd understand it, but Tony knew Steve felt better about seeing this stuff with his own two eyes.

"How's everything look?" Steve asked after a few quiet minutes.

"Honestly?" the doctor asked, watching the screen a moment before she turned to Steve. "Textbook perfect. Just absolutely perfect for this point in the gestation."

Steve squeezed his hand a little, either in reassurance or relief. Tony couldn't be sure which. "Yeah?" he asked, and Bruce nodded.

"Looks real, _real_ good," he said, clicking buttons every so often, pushing the wand over Tony's belly some more for some tortuous reason.

"So, not in distress or anything like that?" Steve asked, and Tony figured he must have been reading something before coming here because why otherwise would he think of something like that?

Bruce, however, snorted a laugh and said, "Honestly? I'm thinking a little annoyed but not distressed in any way. I'm telling you, this is… This is just amazingly perfect."

"Can you tell what it is?" Tony asked. Not that he wanted to know necessarily — he didn't — but he was curious if Bruce or the doctor could tell.

Bruce just looked at him and said, "Do you really want to know that?"

He shrugged then said, "It's human, right?" At Bruce's questioning look, he added, "May have sat through a couple viewings of _Rosemary's Baby_ in the last week."

Above him, Steve shivered and murmured, "I really wish you didn't make me watch that."

"Hey, if I'm going to be freaked out by possibly gestating demon spawn, then so are you."

But Doctor Ganford just smiled at what she probably perceived as their idiocy and said, "Don't worry. It's very human. And very perfect. Would you like to see?"

Steve nodded and said, "Yeah," and Tony shrugged and said, "Whatever," and Bruce and the doctor repositioned the monitor some so that Steve and Tony could better see it. Steve stared at the screen, eyes narrowed, jaw set, mouth pursed into a flat line, almost the way he looked whenever he took in any piece of information he didn't quite understand, and Bruce said, "It's just a sonogram, Steve. It's not aerial photographs of a Hydra base in Sokovia or something."

"That's just his normal look," Tony said. "He probably has gas or something. All right, tell us what we're looking at. I mean, I think I can kind of figure, but you're the experts here."

So, Bruce explained in gentle terms what they were seeing. He pointed to where the head was, pointed to an arm and a leg, and he pressed a button somewhere so that they could hear what was supposed to be a heartbeat. Tony was still having a hard time believing that this was growing inside of him — again, every possibility these were cached images from someone else — but Steve's face had lost its steadfast hardness and had softened into something a little more tender and amazed. He squeezed Tony's hand again, his eyes focused on the screen, and said, "This… Wow…" as the fetus bounced a little in the images, no doubt annoyed by the sound waves it was being bombarded with.

"So," Doctor Ganford said, "as you can see, _very_ healthy, and _very_ perfect. Size, placement, activity, just a very, very healthy baby."

Steve squeezed his hand once more, and he bent down and nestled his head against Tony's on the pillow and whispered a quiet, "Thank you," to him.

"Yeah," he said, unsure how exactly to take that. "Don't mention it."

Bruce and the doctor gave them a picture to take home, and while Tony finally relieved his poor, abused bladder and finished wiping off all the goo that was left on his belly, Steve studied that picture like he would a battle plan. Bruce thanked the doctor for all her help, and she waved off his concern and said it was her pleasure and she was happy to do it. And as they were packing up to leave, Tony grabbing his bag and making for the door, Steve looked at the doctor and said, "Can he— When Tony and I, when we _do_ … Can he feel it? Does he know what's going on? I mean I don't want to—"

But the doctor smiled and him and shook her head and said, "No, the baby doesn't feel it — not like that, if that's what you're worried about. The baby doesn't know what's going on. If you're worried about scarring you baby for life because of normal sexual relations, don't. I can assure you that baby is very happy and healthy."

Steve nodded, clutching the photo, and Tony patted his arm and said, "Come on. You can buy me dinner now. Hopefully, this kid isn't a vegetarian because we're totally finding a Shake Shack."

~*~

One of the best things about Steve was how no-frills the guy really was.

Tony enjoyed fine dining like everyone else. He enjoyed expensive wines (or he did) and upscale restaurants and exclusive lists as he'd become accustomed to after forty years of living the life of a pampered prince and then, once he got older, as one of the wealthiest men in the world.

But sometimes, it was nice to be just a regular meat-and-potatoes kind-of-guy, which Steve was overwhelmingly.

Bruce didn't want to join them as Bruce _was_ a vegetarian (or was at least claiming so today), so he and Steve made their way over to the Lower Level of Grand Central and settled in for a classic American dinner of burgers and fries. Steve loved this sort of fare. He was good about the fancy stuff — he'd had a crash-course of it back during the war — but Steve was a working-class Brooklyn boy at heart, and Steve loved nothing more than to stuff his face with a good burger and some fries and wash it down with a malted milkshake.

The line for service was ridiculous, and Tony whined a little as they came upon the scene of a hungry dinner mob. He bumped his forehead into Steve's shoulder, and Steve reached over and patted his head and said, "Why don't you find us a seat? I'll get the food. What do you want?"

"Cheeseburger, fries, and a chocolate shake with whipped cream. And get me a large Coke, too."

Steve sighed a little as he stood at the back and looked over the menu posted above. "You shouldn't have that much caffeine."

Tony pulled away a little, trying to keep his voice relatively low in the reverberation and echo of sound that bounced off the old walls of the terminal. "Uh, was _I_ the only one that heard the doctor say maybe half-a-dozen times how _perfect_ I am and how _perfect_ everything is? You did hear that, right? You heard her say how perfect I was? Right, Steve? I'm perfect."

"Right _now_ you're perfect—"

"And I will continue to be perfect, and a fucking large Coke isn't going to change anything overnight."

"You never know."

"You're full of shit. Stop worrying, old man. You're not getting rid of me that easily. Plus, pretty sure Nutsy-Cuckoo did this on purpose. The whole making-everything-perfect thing, I mean. Now, is there a bathroom around here? 'Cause evidently, I didn't pee out everything back at the doctor's office."

Steve looked around, and when he couldn't give Tony the answer straightaway, Tony huffed and shoved his bag at him and said, "Whatever. Watch my stuff. I'll be right back."

After a little bit of meandering, he found the bathrooms, heading for the women's room without batting an eyelash. He didn't even realize he'd gone straight into the women's room until he looked around and noticed a distinct lack of urinals.

Maybe he was getting a little _too_ accustomed to this whole thing.

He did his business, and it was as he was about to get up from the toilet that he heard a couple women come in — tourists, he presumed, from their decidedly not-local accents — and one said to the other, "No, that's definitely him. That's Captain America."

"It's not!"

"It is! He looks just like him. God, he's _gorgeous_."

They both took stalls on either side of him, yelling to each other as though there wasn't several slabs of metal in between them.

"I thought he was dating Tony Stark?"

"Oh, that had to have been a publicity thing! I don't think they were really dating. It was probably made up for the press."

"Why?"

"I don't know! I don't know why rich people do what they do! You saw that woman standing there with him."

"Maybe she's just a friend?"

"Please. He's been seen all over town with her! You saw the news. She's pregnant, _obviously_ , and I'll bet you anything it's his."

"Ugh, I'm so jealous. I'd let him knock me up in a heartbeat. Do you think it's serious?"

"You mean do I think you have more than a snowball's chance in hell with Captain America?"

"Oh, shut up! You never know! They might just be friends."

"I think they're more than friends if she's having his kid."

"Maybe she's just a surrogate? Maybe it's not even his."

"Oh, my god! Stop! You are never going to get a date with Captain America!"

"But he's so _pretty!_ "

"He's also from the forties. He'd probably expect you to stay home and be some perfect little housewife."

"For him? That is totally a chance I'm willing to take."

"Hey, for all you know he's a real jerk in real life. Maybe he's a sexist prick? He's from the forties."

"Again, that's a chance I'm willing to take."

"Because he's hot?"

"Pretty much."

They both finished their business, toilets flushing and doors slamming open, and they continued their chatter over by the sinks but they had moved onto some other subject that was more personal and so Tony tuned it out and waited for them to leave before he departed the stall and washed up.

He never realized how many people seemed to like Steve only because of the physical aspect — how big and strong he was or how attractive they thought he was. He knew those girls wouldn't have looked twice at the ninety-pound runt that informed the six-foot, two hundred pound super soldier, even if that ninety-pound runt was identical in spirit and personality. It was all about the appearance to them — the big, strong, powerful, steadfast Captain. And not just them but everyone, to be honest — everyone that had ever focused only on Steve's appearance and not on the man underneath the muscles.

The sly, sarcastic, self-righteous, stubborn, sneak that lay underneath all that height and muscle.

He made his way back to the burger stand and saw that Steve was in line but hadn't really moved up very far. He pushed his way through, getting nasty looks and a few muttered sexist epithets as he cut in between hungry waiting tourists (mostly, it seemed) to meet up with Steve again. He bumped against his arm, and Steve frowned and looked down at him, but his annoyance cleared when he saw it was Tony.

"Feel better?" he asked.

"Much," he said with a nod and took his bag back. He dug through it for his phone. God, why didn't women's clothing come with pockets the way men's did? It made things so much easier!

(Even if he'd found having a bag with him was _really_ convenient. So easy to carry so much with! Why didn't men carry bags? Maybe he should look into changing that after everything went back to the way it had been?)

He checked for any texts or missed calls, saw there were none ( _really?_ ) and stuck it back in the bag, only vaguely noticing the time had read six-thirty. He hummed a little and stood next to Steve, rubbing his belly some as he felt the little beast within him stir from his previous calm.

"OK," he said and shot a pointed look at Steve, "I'm not the only one that's hungry here."

Steve glanced down at him then motioned to the line ahead of him. "I can't make the line go any faster."

"What's the point of being Captain America if you can't use it to get premium service at burger joints?"

"I'm not going to use that as an excuse to jump to the front of the line. We can wait our turn like everyone else."

Tony groaned. "You're such a fucking boy scout!"

Steve motioned over the seating area and said, "Look, it's kind of busy. Why don't you go find us some seats?"

"You're trying to get rid of me, aren't you?"

"What? _No!_ Never," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand, but there was a cocky little smile on his lips, and so Tony knew Steve was trying to get him away so he wouldn't spend the next several minutes whining about how hungry he was.

"Fine. Whatever," he said. "But only 'cause I'm tired and my feet hurt."

"I'm sorry," Steve said and reached up to rub his back then gave him a little shove in the direction of the seating area.

"Jerk," he muttered but still weaved his way out of the line and went over to the last empty table he could find. He sat down, twitching his nose at some smears of ketchup (he hoped it was ketchup) that were left on the table and dug through his bag again for his phone. He pulled it out and checked for any new messages since the last time he'd looked at it and saw there was one.

From fucking Barton, of all people.

« _wuz i right?_ »

He rolled his eyes at the idiot's improper use of grammar and spelling then typed back, _You're never right about anything_ , and hit the little send arrow, leaving it at that. He knew what Barton was asking what he was right about, but damned if he'd allow Barton the courtesy to even think Tony knew what he was talking about.

He sighed a little and checked over the closing prices for that day's stocks, tweaking a smile at the little green up-pointing arrow next to the SI ticker symbol. That was always nice to see. Better than when it was in free-fall after he'd announced the end of weapons manufacturing. He might not have shown it, but that was actually a pretty scary sight, and he was kind of worried there for a moment.

It was as he was browsing the headlines for the day's news that he felt eyes on him, and he shot a surreptitious glance to his left and saw two women sitting several tables away (along with another one that was completely oblivious), trying to hide behind their food as they stared at him. He had a sneaking suspicion they were the same two from the bathroom, but not wanting to cause a scene (no, seriously), he continued to look over his phone as he waited for Steve to arrive with his bounty. But he could still feel their stares burning a hole into his temple, and forgetting his previous promise, he turned to them, petulant, lips pursed into a tight smile, and tilted his head as though to ask a bitchy, " _Yes?_ "

Both their eyes went wide as they realized they'd been caught, and they quickly averted, both looking in different directions. Tony shook his head and went back to his phone, which buzzed with a new message.

« _yes I am its a girl_ »

"Atrocious," he muttered to himself and didn't know if he meant Barton's spelling, grammar, or insistence that he was right that the little acrobat thumping against his insides was a girl.

He simply typed back, _I wouldn't play the lottery any time soon if I were you_.

In response, he got a picture of Natasha with a pair of chopsticks in her hand, halfway to shoving a potsticker in her mouth.

He didn't even bother to reply to that. He was pretty sure that was his kitchen in the background of the picture, though. A quick check of the attached details showed the picture had been taken right before it had been sent.

One of these days he was _totally_ going to lock them out of the penthouse. He didn't know why JARVIS continued to allow it, though he knew if he asked, JARVIS would give him some sarcastic answer implying that, well, Tony had never _said_ they couldn't be in the penthouse…

His phone buzzed again.

« _I want my money in pennies cuz I want to put it in a pool and dive into it like uncle scrooge_ »

"That was a cartoon, you moron," he muttered but typed back, _You're not getting any money. It's not a girl._

He received a couple of laughing emoji in return.

"Whatever," he muttered and switched back over to reading the newsfeeds from the day until he felt someone staring at him again, and he turned to see those same two women trying very hard not to look like they'd been watching him the entire time.

He stared point-blank at them, daring them to look away, but they both just smiled at him and raised their soda cups at him. He wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a toast or a peace offering.

Thankfully, Steve arrived with the food, which distracted him, but not before he saw both girls gasp and then motion to each other excitedly, the third one shaking her head and muttering something to them. He rolled his eyes and turned to the tray Steve had set down on the table, raising an eyebrow at the food and cups piled on top of it.

"Think you ordered enough there?" he asked as he took his burger and fries.

Steve shrugged and sat down in the chair opposite him. "Got hungry," he said and grabbed one of the burgers that remained. He handed Tony his shake and his soda, and Tony stuck a straw in each and went to sip the soda—

And came away with the flavor of carbonated lemon-lime.

He set the drink down and glared at Steve. "This doesn't taste like Coke."

Steve glanced at the drink for only a second and said, "Yeah," before he bit into his burger.

He watched Steve stuff his face for a moment before he said, "I specifically asked for Coke."

"They ran out," he said through a mouthful of food.

Tony nodded then motioned at Steve's drink. "That looks like Coke."

"I got the last one."

Tony again watched him stuff crinkle cut fries and then another large bite of what looked like a double into his mouth then said, "Can you come up with any more bad lies?"

Steve chewed and then swallowed his bite and said, "I could try."

Tony stared at him a moment then grumbled and grabbed his shake, relieved to see that it was at least the right color for what he'd asked for. He held it up, as though to ask Steve why _this_ was OK when cola wasn't, but Steve shrugged and said, "You wanted a chocolate shake," before he dunked a fry in ketchup and shoved it in his mouth.

"You know there's caffeine in chocolate, right?"

Steve nodded and dunked another fry in ketchup then stuck it in his mouth. "Yeah, but didn't I see chocolate's supposed to be good for you?"

"Not sure if that follows for chocolate milkshakes," Tony said and set the shake down before he picked up his burger and took a large, savory bite.

Steve grabbed his large Coke and took a long, slow sip of it through the straw, and he smacked his lips a little after he'd drunk about a quarter of it in one go and said, "You know, I know plastic's bad for the environment, but honestly, plastic straws are so much easier than what we got back in my day."

"Which was?"

"Paper. Unless you were in the hospital. Then they were glass."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Paper?" he asked and, holding his burger in one hand, grabbed the straw for his milkshake and hit it on the table a few times to get the paper to break. "How does that even work?"

Steve dunked another fry. "They were wax coated," he said and stuffed it in his mouth. "They were good for a little bit," he said through the bite, "but then they'd get soggy, and I had a habit of chewing on mine."

Tony stuck the straw in his shake then reached out and grabbed one of Steve's fries. Steve glared at him and pointedly looked at Tony's own serving of crinkle cuts, but honestly, food always tasted better when it belonged to someone else, and it tasted especially good when it belonged to Steve.

He dunked the fry and said, "Always like to have something in your mouth, don't you? Something _hard_ and _thick_ and _hot_."

Steve made a face. "That's…not what paper straws were like at all."

Tony rolled his eyes. "That was sexual innuendo, Steve," he muttered and popped the fry in his mouth. He chewed it and said, "I was trying to insinuate you like to suck brain."

Steve was quiet a moment before he said, "Kinda miss that."

"Seriously?" Tony asked and took another bite of his burger.

Steve smiled a little like he was surprised by Tony's surprise. "Well, yeah. Why wouldn't I? I didn't do it because I thought I was supposed to. I _liked_ doing it. I liked doing it for you. I liked the way you would tilt your head back and bear your neck. That's how I know you're gone — really gone. I like seeing that."

Tony nodded and considered this a moment. Steve went back to eating his gargantuan amount of food, and he watched him for a minute or so then said, "Well, I'm not going to be like this forever. Just another, what, three— four months or something?"

Steve shrugged. "Something like that," he said around a mouthful of burger.

"Then everything can go back to the way it was, and you can go back to sucking my cock, and I can go back to standing up to pee. Seriously, squatting is _so_ inefficient you can't even begin to understand."

Steve just nodded and continued to stuff his face.

"You know," he said as he watched, "maybe a _little_ more sympathy wouldn't hurt?"

Steve glanced up and, through a mouthful of food, said, "I'm sorry you have to squat to pee."

Well, it was _something_ , he supposed.

He just sighed a little and shook his head and went back to eating his dinner.

He also had to pee again by the time they finished eating. His trip to the bathroom this time was uneventful, even if there was a frickin' line this time — why did it seem like there was _always_ a line at the ladies' room? — but he was eventually able to get in, do his business, and get out without having to hear about how much some random woman wanted his husband to knock her up.

Huh. Should he tell Steve about that?

He made his way back over to the table, and he saw Steve sitting there hunched over and staring at something in his hands. He knew without a doubt it was the sonogram photo, and he twitched a smile and muttered, "Fucking sap," then went over and slid back into his chair.

Steve glanced up and tried to hide what he'd been looking at, but Tony sighed and said, "I know, Steve."

Steve went a little flushed at that. "Sorry," he said, "just…"

"Not a big deal. I get it. It makes it 'real' for you."

Steve shrugged some, pulling his hands back and leaving the photo out in the open. "Feeling it move around inside you kinda makes it real, too."

Tony nodded at the sonogram picture that now sat on the table. "You might want to put that away before someone sees it."

Steve snatched it off the table and stuck it into his shirt pocket.

"Also, I forgot to mention to you before, but you are a hot slice of beefcake, and I should probably watch my back because there are women out there that would sell their souls for the honor of being knocked up by you."

Steve winced away from him. "What?"

"Women talk to each other in the bathroom. Did you know that? A _lot_. Saying 'I'd let Captain America knock me up in a heartbeat' is evidently not something to be ashamed of and is clearly something to shout proudly out of a bathroom stall."

Steve seemingly processed these words before he scowled and said, "They didn't say that."

He reached out and grabbed his soda. "Yeah? Well, you weren't in there, so clearly, you don't know. I was. And, as it turns out, there are women out there that would gladly have your super soldier babies and are totes cool with the world knowing that."

He sucked down the remainder of the lemon-lime, watered down by the ice that had melted, and Steve raised an eyebrow, apparently hearing something that Tony hadn't said. "Are you saying you're not?" he asked.

"What?"

"Glad?"

"About?"

Steve swallowed, and the apples of his cheeks tinged a little pink as he averted his gaze. "Nothing. Never mind."

"Glad about what, Steve?"

He shook his head. "Nothing," he said and stood up. "Come on. Let's go."

Tony noisily sucked down the remainder of the liquid in his cup, and he set it on the tray Steve had grabbed then grabbed his bag from the chair and stood up. He checked his phone again as Steve went to deposit the garbage, and he rolled his eyes when he saw Barton had sent him another text yet again.

« _does bruce know what it is?_ »

He sighed and huffed out a breath as he typed, _I don't know. I didn't ask_ , then stuck the phone back in his bag again as Steve returned to collect him.

They walked the way back to the Tower, Steve with a firm hold of Tony's hand, the spring sunshine setting beyond the buildings to the west, and Tony was pretty sure he saw a couple people shoot pointed looks their way, but like earlier, no one really, honestly seemed to care. They stopped at a cross-street and waited for the traffic to clear before they continued on their way, though the most they had to contend with was some older lady smiling at Tony and saying, "When are you due?"

Tony blinked at her, blanking on the info. That…was probably something he should have been made aware of.

"August," Steve said before Tony could look like too much of an idiot.

The woman frowned in pity and disgust. "Ugh, the worst of the summer months! My oldest was a summer baby, too, and let me tell you! They didn't have air conditioning back then. It's not fun being sticky and sweaty and your belly out to here—" she held her hand several inches in front of her, "—so big you can't even see your feet!" She patted his arm. "You're lucky. You girls today have things we couldn't have dreamed of back in the day! You probably already know what you're having, don't you?"

Tony opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came out, and Steve said, "No, actually, we're waiting to be surprised."

"Oh! Well, you don't hear that too often nowadays!" she said with a laugh before the light changed and she was on her way.

Steve went to lead them across the street, but Tony held steady and still, and Steve frowned and said, "What's wrong?"

"I didn't know that," he said.

"What?"

"When this is all supposed to be over. I didn't— I never did the— I guess I didn't think about it, really." He blinked and looked at Steve. "Do I have an actual _date_ I'm supposed to be done by, or—?"

"Uh, the fourteenth, I think. August fourteenth. That's what Doctor Ganford said before. Weren't you listening to her?"

"Guess not," he said with a shrug then let Steve lead him across the street.

That was something he should have known, and had it been anyone else going through this, he would have had it figured out the moment after the test had come back 'positive.'

But it was different being that it was he himself that was going through this. He'd been in denial about it for so long and had hoped and wished it away so much that he kind of forgot that there was an end point and there would come a time that this would come to its natural conclusion.

Its natural, _painful_ conclusion, from what he understood.

Well, he wasn't thinking about _that_ part of it right now. But the fact of the matter was he hadn't known. Steve had, and evidently Bruce and the doctor had. But he hadn't. He hadn't cared.

Jesus, what kind of a mother didn't care about something like that?

He tried to remember what that little Tasmanian devil had said her birthday was. Bruce would probably remember — Bruce was good for stuff like that — but he wasn't really sure he wanted to bring this up to Bruce. He'd pretty much demanded silence over it from both Bruce and Rhodey the moment that other Steve had shown up to take her back, but he was _certain_ — he would have _sworn_ — it was August. August of 2014.

He would bet the life of this fetus on it.

Hill was standing in the middle of the penthouse living area when they got back a little while after that, the rest of their stroll taken in comfortable silence, tablet in-hand and a none-too-pleased look on her face.

"What's wrong?" Steve asked, only to be wordlessly handed the tablet. He looked it over a moment then sighed a little and showed it to Tony.

Another candid photo of them on a gossip site — taken not one hour before, which was blatantly obvious because it was a photo of him and Steve sitting at the Shake Shack in Grand Central.

Probably taken with a cell phone.

" _Really?_ " he squeaked because this voice fucking sucked sometimes. "They couldn't have waited _two seconds_ for me to finish taking a bite before they took the picture? I look like a fucking cow!"

He scowled at the image that accompanied the brief text about 'Captain America and his Baby Mama,' and Steve shook his head and said, "I don't like that they can do this — make it seem as low-brow and disgusting and _illicit_ as they're making it out to be."

"Ignoring the problem isn't going to make it go away," Hill said. "Not if you keep doing stuff like this. If you're going to keep being seen in public together, I'm sorry, Steve, but I think you're going to have to bite the bullet here."

Steve exhaled a breath. "I know," he said, sounding less-than-pleased by the fact.

Hill took the tablet back, and Tony said, "I guess I could call a press conference. Tell the world 'Natasha Carbonell' is really Tony Stark."

Steve went to protest this, but Hill said, "Getting ahead of the story would put some of the power back in our hands. There's rampant speculation out there now. The more you do this, the more questions people are going to ask, and the worse they're going to make everything seem."

"Am I still a gold-digging, blackmailing whore?"

Hill tweaked a bemused smile at him. "Depends on which station you watch."

"All right," Steve said then motioned between himself and Tony. "We'll talk about it. Let you know what we decide. You had anyone asking for interviews?"

" _Today?_ " Hill asked, and Steve nodded when he understood what that implied.

"Anyone that might be on _our_ side of it?"

"I'd have to check."

"Do that," Steve said with a decisive nod. "Let us know what you find."

"You got it, boss," Hill said then tilted her head to the side a little and said, "Did I hear there's a picture?"

"Huh?" Steve asked, but Tony nudged him and said, "I think she means the sonogram—" he turned his attention to Hill, "—and since when do _you_ care about that sort of stuff?"

"Oh," Steve murmured and pulled the picture out of his pocket to show Hill, handing it over gingerly like it was a precious keepsake, and Hill took the photo but smirked a little at Tony and said, "I didn't know I ever didn't." She looked at the photo, her eyebrows raising a little in awed amusement. She glanced up to Steve and Tony and said, "Wow. So, does this make it more real for you?"

Tony shrugged, but Steve said, "A little. Yeah."

"Boy or a girl?"

"We're waiting to find out."

Hill smiled like she was trying not to laugh. "I'd think the 'man with the plan' would want to know so he could plan accordingly."

"Well," he said and took the picture back when Hill handed it over, "maybe I'm a little more old- fashioned than you think."

"He's hankering for the good ol' days of the sixteenth century," Tony said, and Steve turned to him in a little confusion as he pocketed the picture again.

"What's with all the age jokes lately? I thought they were beneath you?"

He shrugged. "Easy pickings."

Steve just shook his head a little, and Hill smiled and said, "Congratulations," before she left, and after the elevator door was closed and the car was on the descent, Steve turned to him and said, "She's right, you know."

"About?"

"Us. What we're doing. What the public's saying about us. It would be better if we got ahead of it."

"I know," he said with a heavy sigh and went over to the couch. He collapsed onto it, and Steve collapsed beside him before he pulled him into a tight, warm embrace, and they cuddled for a moment before Tony said, "How should we do it?"

"However you want."

"That's not an answer."

"Yeah, it is."

"How?"

Steve tightened his arms a little bit. "Not my decision to make. It's yours. We'll do it however you want."

He thought about this a moment then said, "How 'bout skywriting?"

"If that's what you want."

"Scavenger hunt for the press?"

"If that's what you want."

"What about you going out on national television and just saying, 'Hi, my name's Captain America, and I'm the lucky bastard that knocked up Iron Man.'"

Steve snorted a laugh and said, "If that's what you want. I like to think I'd be a little…gentler about it."

"No, I don't want you to be gentle. I want you to be all strong and powerful — like a fucking alpha male grunting and beating your chest because you knocked up your mate."

Steve cuddled him some more, and he nestled his head against Tony's, burying his face in Tony's hair a moment before he pulled back slightly and said, "What about Hydra?"

"Fuck 'em."

"While I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment, that's not exactly a solid game plan."

Tony thought about this a moment before he hummed a bit then said, "Look, it was always going to come to this, wasn't it? Even if we'd kept quiet about this whole thing, and I'd gone this whole…pregnancy…without anyone outside of the Avengers knowing about it, I don't think we'd be able to hide a kid for very long. We'd always _have_ to make the announcement, and no matter what, that kid is always, always, _always_ going to be a target. Even if we'd just adopted the kid, it would always be a target. Because it's Captain America and Iron Man's kid, and every tin-pot dictator this side of the collapse of SHIELD would want to get their hands on it for any number of reasons. Because those asshats would rightly know that we would be the type of people to do anything to get our kid back."

"Agreed," Steve said quickly and fervently, tightening his arms around Tony just the slightest. Tony wasn't even sure if Steve realized he had done it, and he was reminded — for just a brief moment — of a slightly panicked voice calling out, " _Olivia Louise!_ "

"Anyway," he said, clearing that memory from his mind, "the point is, we were never going to keep this secret forever. We were always going to have to come out with it."

"Yeah, I know," Steve said, sounding downright miserable at that fact. "So, how do you want to do it?"

Tony hummed and snuggled a little closer to Steve. "What's that corny-ass thing you told me back when this whole thing started? Oh, right! Together."


	21. Chapter 21

* * *

Tony was sitting in Bruce's lab, arms folded and foot tapping against the floor, as Bruce shuffled in the following morning, still in what looked like pajamas, hair mussed, and face scruffy with five o'clock shadow. He yawned a little and scratched at his chest as he spied Tony sitting beside the table, and he shuffled over, slowly, like a fucking turtle in a race against a hare, and said, "You know, we really didn't have to do it _this_ early."

"Oh," Tony said, more awake than he wanted to be at this time. "You mean at the ass-crack of dawn? Yeah, I don't know if you're aware of this, but I've got the spawn of a super soldier growing inside of me—" he gestured at his abdomen at this, "—and the super soldier spawn seems to have the same gargantuan appetite that the super soldier father has. Honestly, you stick a side of beef in front of me at this very second, I would polish that baby off in twenty minutes tops."

Bruce shook his head a little, and he shuffled over to a cabinet to grab some supplies. "You couldn't eat a whole side of beef," he said as he collected empty tubes into a little basket. "I don't even think Thor could eat a whole side of beef."

"Yeah, fine, whatever. The point is, I'm fucking starving. I haven't eaten in—" He reached out and grabbed his phone to check the time. "Twelve hours, forty-six minutes, and, oh, fourteen seconds."

"That's pretty precise," Bruce said and grabbed a pair of latex gloves and a rubber band.

"Well, when you're hungry, every second counts."

Bruce nodded and grabbed a few more supplies then made his way over to where Tony sat at the table. He set the basket of items down and started organizing things, laying out the tubes in the order he wanted to fill them, and Tony frowned and blinked at the number and size of them.

"Are you kidding me? Am I giving samples for a test or donating to the Red Cross?"

"Doctor Ganford wants a full workup, and to be honest, I'd like you to have one, too. I know you _think_ everything is OK, but I'd like some empirical evidence to put my mind at ease."

"Fine, whatever. Just— Could you hurry it up?"

Bruce paused his motions and shot a look at Tony.

"It's been twelve hours, I'm going crazy here, now _stick me!_ " he said and, to drive his point home, thrust his arm out at Bruce.

Bruce stared at his arm a moment then said, "Isn't that what you said to Steve that got you into all this trouble to start with?"

"Wait, are you sassing me?" Tony asked, completely flummoxed at Bruce's snarky little comment. "Seriously? At a time like this?"

"Yeah," Bruce said and took Tony's arm. He inspected it, turning it over, then frowned and pursed his lips before he set it down and took hold of his other arm. He did the same thing, inspecting and turning it over, before he made a slight face of resignation and set that arm down and went back to the first one. He pressed at the soft area at the inside of Tony's elbow then nodded and grabbed the rubber band.

"Make a fist," he said, and Tony followed his instructions and watched as Bruce tied the band the proper amount above the elbow and then turned Tony's arm. He pressed some more just to the side of the inside of his elbow and nodded his approval. He put the gloves on, grabbed an alcohol wipe, and wiped the area to sterilize before he turned and grabbed a syringe.

"OK," he said, "you're going to feel a little pinch."

Tony raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you kidding me? I've actually embedded sensors into my body for my flying armored suit."

"Yeah, but that's you doing something to yourself. It's different when someone else is sticking you."

"Yeah, it's more fun."

Bruce shot a look at him.

"Uh, you're talking about sex, right?"

Bruce just shook his head a little and pressed the needle into his skin. Tony made a slight face at the pinch, but again, he'd embedded fucking _sensors_ for his suit in his body. He could take a fucking syringe that was…filling up rather rapidly with his blood now that Bruce had removed the band from his arm. He glanced over at the line of tubes that had yet to be filled, and he looked back at Bruce again and said, "Seriously, how much blood do you plan on draining from me?"

"Enough," Bruce said, watching rather stringently as the tube filled with blood. Once it was filled, he pulled it off and grabbed the next tube. He snapped it on, and Tony watched as that one began to fill as well. After a few quiet moments, Bruce said in a low and somewhat unsure voice, "So, you want a boy, huh?"

Tony shrugged a little. "Well, when I bother to think about it in terms like that, yeah. Sure."

Bruce shot him a pointed look. "Do you really, or are you just saying that?"

"No, I do really—"

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. Why?"

Bruce just shot him another _look_ like he was supposed to be fucking able to read what Bruce was thinking. How the hell was he supposed to know what Bruce was thinking about? The only one he was ever able to read like that was Steve.

"Yeah, you're going to have to give me a little more to go on here—"

"Did you ever think maybe that this is…"

"Is what?"

" _Magic_ , Tony," he said like that was supposed to explain everything. "You remember what that— _Magic_ _._ "

"Not following."

Bruce inhaled a breath through his nose and pulled off one full tube to replace it with an empty one. "You're not this stupid, Tony. You know what I'm talking about. Maybe this is how you get—"

" _Don't!_ " he cried.

He met Bruce's gaze, staring at him, glaring at him, almost daring him to continue his train of thought.

But Bruce just stared right back, a little sad-eyed, and he said a soft and solemn, "Tony, I really think you should consider the fact that—"

"What _fact?_ There is no _fact_. That was— She wasn't— I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't. _Papa_."

Tony squeezed his eyes shut, trying to drown out the sudden vision of a macaroni and cheese and hot dog dinner and a cheerful and chipper little voice begging to show him what her 'Anna Tasha' had taught her to do. He inhaled a deep breath through his nose and let it out as he opened his eyes and said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Tony, I think it's entirely possible that—"

"Yeah? Well, you're wrong."

"You don't know that—"

"Yeah, I kind of do."

Bruce stood back a moment and folded his arms. "How? How do you know that?"

"I don't know. I just _do_. I just— I don't— Look, I— She wasn't _mine_ , Bruce—"

"She seemed to be under the impression that she was."

"She was a kid! She didn't know any— She thought I had amnesia again or something! Look, it doesn't matter—"

"Careful! Don't move your arm!"

He made sure to steady himself then continued, "That was— It happened— It was a while ago, Brucie. Two years ago now. I'm not— I don't even think about it. I don't even care."

Bruce snorted a laugh. "You don't care?"

"No, I don't."

"Well, you give a piss-poor impression of not caring," he said and pulled off the full tube of blood and clicked on another empty one. Tony rolled his eyes at his assessment as he watched him.

"I don't, all right?"

"Then you shouldn't mind if I allude to the fact that it's possible that that child is—"

" _—not_ her," Tony finished for him. "It's not, all right? It's a— Steve wants a boy. It's a boy."

Bruce let that hang in the air a moment before he said, "Does he know?"

"About?"

"Olivia."

Tony squeezed his eyes shut again and bit down hard on his lip.

"Yeah, really looks like you don't care at all. I totally believe that."

"In answer to your question," he said and opened his eyes again to look at Bruce. "Yeah, sort of. I mean, I didn't tell him _everything_. I told him— He knows what happened, but he doesn't— I didn't exactly— He and I weren't together at the time, so I didn't exactly tell him the _whole_ story about what happened. I didn't want to freak him out. But he knows about her in theory — that I had an alternate-universe daughter. He just doesn't know that she was his daughter, too."

"Maybe you should tell him?"

"Why? It doesn't matter. Look, you remember that, right? You remember the things she said — the people and the things she was talking about. Does half of it sound like it could be here or be our lives?"

"Half of it? Yeah—"

He groaned and rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean! She was talking about things—"

"Look, I just think you should consider it, all right? You heard what that Steve said. _Magic_. _Magic_ , Tony. How the hell did you get into this situation in the first place?"

"Uh, as you so eloquently put it, I begged Steve to 'stick it' in me."

Bruce rolled his eyes. "That's not what I mean, and you know it."

"Yeah, OK, so, yeah, magic. Whatever. That doesn't mean it's the same—"

"Why not? Why not, Tony? Explain to me why it's more plausible that that was a daughter from an alternate universe instead of your own future daughter that you're currently pregnant with because of _magic._ "

"Because it is!" he cried. "Because it just _is_ , and I _thought_ I made myself clear in that we were never to discuss this ever again, but evidently, you have a bad memory, so let me refresh it: We are _never_ going to talk about this ever again."

"What are you so afraid of? Why are you so afraid that this could be what you've wanted—"

"Whoa! Who says I _wanted_ it—"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe the way that you were ready, willing, and able to reorganize your life around her after _two days_ —"

"Well, I didn't think I had much _choice_. She kind of just got dropped on me, and it wasn't like I had any way of getting her back—"

"You didn't even try! You didn't even try to get her back, and when I said I thought I had an idea, you shot me down! You didn't _want_ her to go back, Tony! You wanted her to stay. You _wanted_ her, so why can't you let yourself believe — just for a second — that _that_ —" he motioned at Tony's abdomen, "—is what you've been missing ever since the future version of your husband came to take her back to where she belonged?"

"I'm sorry. What is it that you don't understand about _we are never speaking about this ever again?_ "

Bruce yanked off the tube of blood and stuck another empty one on.

"You're crazy," he said with a mutter. "You're goddamned crazy. I'm trying to reason with a crazy person."

"I'm not crazy. I'm—"

"Look, I'm not saying it _is_ , but why can't you just admit to yourself — if just for a moment — that maybe that _is_ her and this is how you got her? That maybe _this_ is—"

"Yeah, no, not speaking about it. Look, I know, all right? Call it 'mother's intuition' or something. I know that this — that that— I know, all right? I just know, and I don't care. It's not a big deal. I think it's a bigger deal to you than it is to me."

But Bruce just shook his head, closing his eyes and muttering something under his breath that Tony couldn't make out.

He wasn't crazy, all right? He just… Look, it wasn't worth thinking about something that would never come to pass. She was from an alternate timeline. She had to be. No, he didn't have any proof of this, but Bruce didn't have any proof that she was from their future, either. In fact, it made more sense that she _was_ from an alternate universe. She'd said some strange things and referenced some strange things that just didn't make sense for how their world was set up. So, yeah, maybe she was under the impression that he was her 'papa,' but evidently her 'papa' and he were very similar in both appearance and personality.

And that Steve and his Steve were pretty similar in how they kissed, now that he thought about it, but that kind of followed, didn't it? They were just alternate universe versions of each other.

Though they also had a similar way of grasping him by the back of the head...

Whatever. It didn't mean anything. Bruce was grasping at straws. He was an outsider in all this. Tony was the one actually _growing_ this little creature inside of him, and he just— He knew— He felt—

Look, he just _knew_ , all right? He felt— He believed— This wasn't _her_ , and who even said he _wanted_ her, anyway? Yeah, OK, she was kind of cute, but she was a rambunctious and opinionated chatterbox with an ego the size of Texas.

Jesus Christ, she really _was_ a miniature Steve, wasn't she?

It didn't matter. This wasn't her, she had never belonged to him, and what made Bruce think he would even _want_ her, anyway? Maybe he wanted a boy — a son. Maybe he wanted a chance to prove that not all Starks were asshole fathers. Maybe he wanted to be for his son what his father never was for him.

Maybe, if he repeated it enough times, he would come to convince himself at some point.

Bruce clicked on the last empty tube to fill, and Tony watched the blood seep in slower than it had on the first tube and said, "Is this your way of trying to tell me something?"

"What?" Bruce asked as he organized the already-filled tubes.

"You know the sex?"

He shook his head a little but didn't look at Tony. "I don't know the sex."

"Yeah, didn't you just do the ultrasound yesterday?"

"You and Steve said you didn't want to know. I didn't bother to check."

"Yeah, I'm going to call 'bullshit' on that one. You know. This is your way of trying to 'hint' it to me, isn't it?"

But he shook his head some more and said, "It's really not. It's just— It's something I've been thinking about for a while." He turned to look at Tony. "I just think you should _consider_ it. I'm not saying you have to believe it, but maybe you should just consider that that wasn't as much of an alternate universe life as you might have originally thought."

"And _you_ should mind your own fucking business."

Bruce nodded some and said, "Yep, doing a fantastic job there of showing how little you care about all this, Tony."

"Whatever," he muttered and looked at his arm. "Are we done here?"

Bruce glanced at the tube. "Just a little bit more. I want to make sure there's enough in there."

"Yeah, look, vampires suck less blood out of a person than you're taking."

"Vampires aren't real."

Tony arched an eyebrow. "And crazy space fertility goddesses that can transform you into a completely different sex so your sexy super soldier lover can knock you up _are?_ "

Bruce snorted out a laugh but didn't say anything.

"Besides," he added and scratched at his jaw, "if I'm listening to Steve correctly, vampires may not be as…unreal as you might think."

Bruce raised a curious but disbelieving eyebrow at him.

"Yeah, turns out the 'official' record of what Captain America and the Howling Commandos got up to during the war is only the half of it. I swear to god he mentioned something about vampires once or twice."

"And you didn't ask him to go into more detail because—?"

"Because clearly I have to change the locks on the doors because you people don't seem to realize that the penthouse is not the 'common area.' There is literally a common floor for everyone to congregate on, and nobody uses it."

Bruce shrugged, smiling sheepishly at him as he did so. "Maybe the penthouse is just homier or something?"

"Or maybe you people are just a bunch freeloading moochers?"

"You know, you're going to miss us when we're gone," Bruce said and disconnected the final vial. He set it aside then grabbed a cotton ball and pressed it over where the needle was inserted into his skin, pulling the needle out and setting it aside before he grabbed the medical tape and tore off a piece with his teeth.

"That's unsanitary," Tony muttered as he watched Bruce tape the cotton over the hole in his arm.

"You're fine. Trust me," Bruce replied. "OK, all done."

"Finally," Tony muttered and rolled his eyes. He made to jump up, but his stupid stomach weighed him down, and he grumbled a bit as he struggled out of the chair, finally deigning to let Bruce help him up.

"I won't tell anyone," Bruce murmured.

"Damn right you won't," Tony replied and stumbled a little when his head went a little woozy. He caught himself on the edge of the table. "How the hell much did you take?"

"The amount that I needed. Are you OK?" Bruce said and crowded him a little in concern. Tony waved him off.

"Yeah, yeah, just give me a second."

"You should go drink some orange juice."

Tony, gripping the table as he blinked the dizziness away, shot a look at Bruce and said, "You _do_ recall that I live with a slob that drinks from the carton, right?"

Bruce chuckled a little. "Steve's saliva really disgusts you _that_ much?"

"When it's been able to fester and break down food into more easily-digestible particles, yeah, it does— And _don't_ even think of bringing up his come! That's completely different!"

Bruce snapped the gloves off then held up his hands in defense. "I wasn't going to say a word," he said with a laugh.

Tony eyed him over and hummed a little like he was considering the earnestness of Bruce's words before he said, "Whatever," and pushed away from the table, the lightheadedness having abated. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go find something to eat before this parasite tries to mutiny or something."

"I don't think that's possible, but go. Get out of here. I'll run these and have the results sent over to Denise."

"Whatever," Tony said again and turned to leave, but he stopped a moment and turned back to Bruce and said a somewhat less assured, "You don't really think there's anything to worry about, do you?"

"About what?" Bruce asked as he gathered the samples together and made to carry them over to another part of the lab.

Tony nodded at the small assortment of samples. "That."

"No," Bruce said and waved off his concern. "I'm ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure you're fine. I just want to make absolutely certain you're fine."

Tony nodded and turned to leave again, and Bruce called out, "You know, it's OK to be excited about this."

Tony turned again. "Excuse me?"

Bruce just went about setting up some apparatus for testing. "You don't have to pretend like you hate this entire thing."

He folded his arms. "What makes you think I'm pretending?"

Bruce continued to shuffle about his station, but he said, "Didn't I hear you and Steve were discussing names?"

Tony sputtered a few non-words then said, "Hypothetically."

"Pretty settled on the boy's name, from what I hear. And the girl's you can't agree on because you both want your mother's name first."

"That doesn't mean any—"

"And if you _really_ hated it as much as you claimed, you wouldn't even think about going out in public looking like that. And you wouldn't have agreed to see Denise or go for an ultrasound."

"Yeah, I really just did those last two things to shut you and Steve up—"

Bruce looked up from his motions and met Tony's gaze. "It's OK to actually enjoy the fact that you're having a baby. It's OK to be excited by the fact that you and Steve are going to be parents. It's OK to embrace this part of you. You don't have to keep up appearances for any of us."

Tony scoffed and rolled his eyes. " _Way_ off-base there, Brucie. There is no 'enjoying' or 'embracing' going on here. There is only counting down the days until this is done and over with."

" _Tony_ …"

"Look, you run your little tests. I'm gonna go look for something to eat because, holy shit, I don't know if I'm weak from hunger or blood loss—"

Bruce frowned at him. "Tony, are you sure you're OK? Maybe you should sit down—"

"Fine, Brucie!" he said and turned to make his way out of Bruce's lab. "See you on the other side."

"That doesn't make sense in this context!" Bruce called after him, but Tony left the lab and went over to the elevator. He hit the button and waited for it to arrive, and once it did, he stepped on and asked, "Hey, J, is Steve still out on his run?"

" _It does appear that the Captain has not yet returned from his run._ "

Tony thought about this a moment then said, "Send him a message. Tell him to bring me home something good."

" _Of course, Sir_."

"Anyone else awake yet?"

" _I'm sorry. It appears as though everyone else is still asleep_."

He huffed a bit and said, "Fine. Let's go to my lab, J. Get some work in before Steve gets home with my feast. Wait! No, on second thought—" He yawned and rubbed his belly. "Penthouse, J. Might as well catch a few more winks until Steve gets back. No shame in that, right?"

" _I wouldn't think so_ ," JARVIS replied and took him back up to the penthouse.

Tony didn't make it to the bedroom. He only went as far as the couch, found his phone, checked for any messages, saw there were none, and ended up falling asleep on the couch, snug under a blanket that smelled like Steve. He dozed until he was startled awake by his phone buzzing on the coffee table, and he frowned and blinked at it then reached out and picked it up, seeing he had a new message.

« _On my way home with coffee and donuts._ »

Tony grinned and snugged further into the blanket that smelled like happiness. _This_ was why he loved this man more than anything. Because he always came home bearing gifts from this travels.

And coffee and doughnuts? Oh, he knew him so well!

He set the phone back down on the table and stretched out, and he lay there a few more moments and thought about waiting there until Steve got home and then making Steve sit on the coffee table and just feed him right where he was. But that would mean the potential for jelly and powdered sugar all over the couch and the carpet, and he groaned out the rest of his sleep and struggled to sit up, glaring down at his abdomen and wondering how much worse this could possibly get.

Yeah, maybe not a question he wanted to have answered.

He finally sat up, and he pushed himself to his feet and went into the kitchen and sat down at the island to wait for Steve. Knowing Steve, he'd only remembered to send that message as soon as he'd gotten into the lobby downstairs.

He drummed his hands on the tabletop in anticipation, and he glanced up and looked ahead of him to the fridge, frowning at the little square piece of blue paper he saw there. He got up and went over to inspect it. It looked like one of Steve's stupid stunts, but if Steve stuck a piece of paper somewhere, there was usually a reason for it — and maybe, in this circumstance, something on it. This, he realized as he came upon the slip, was blank.

"Whatcha looking at?"

Tony turned and saw the entire pajama-clad brood filing into the room one after the other: Natasha followed by Barton and Wilson and Barnes (who kept trying to get around Wilson only to have his way blocked each time) and Bruce (who at least appeared to have shaved since he'd drained blood from him) with Thor bringing up the rear. He frowned at them, watching as they all situated themselves around the island, taking what Tony had come to realize were their 'usual' spots, and he folded his arms and said, "What the hell are you people doing here?"

Barton held up his phone some. "Fearless Leader promised us coffee and doughnuts."

" _What?_ " he cried, dropping his arms. "I thought that message was for me."

"It probably was," Natasha said with a shrug. "As much as it was for all of us."

He groaned and rolled his eyes. "Fucking moochers," he muttered then glanced back at the fridge, remembering why he'd even left his seat to begin with — the one Thor had currently settled his regal ass into. "Hey, any of you know why there's a blue sticky on the fridge?"

The room went oddly quiet at that, and Tony turned and stared at their blank looks in a little confusion before Bruce cleared his throat and said, "Oh, yeah, that's mine. I, uh, I was going to write down some things I thought we needed from the store, and I, uh—" He scratched the back of his head. "Didn't I write anything?"

"No," Tony said, raising an eyebrow at what was clearly a very bad lie on Bruce's part.

"Oh," he said with a nervous laugh. "Oh, well. I guess you can just toss it unless you want to use it for something else."

He humphed and said, "Steve could probably find a use for it. _Someone_ , I'm not gonna say who, but _someone_ in this room introduced the old man to the concept of 'recycling'—" he used finger quotes on the word, "—and now I get fucking shit from Greenpeace and 'save the oceans' and sad pictures of animals caught in those stupid soda can holder-things in my inbox seven days a week. Actually, those are really sad, and if I see anyone throwing out one of those soda can holder- things without cutting it up first, you're out on the street."

Both Wilson and Bruce began to defend themselves at the exact same time, and Tony had known Bruce must have flapped his damned gums to Steve about saving the environment, but he hadn't thought Wilson was the type to push that agenda, too. Then again, Wilson was still doing part- time counseling work, so of course it made sense he was into that hippy-drippy crap.

God, they probably sat around in Bruce's lab and ate granola and talked about changing the world through the power of love.

"Ah, come on," Barton said, pulling Tony out of his imagined picture of Bruce and Wilson standing on a hilltop and singing 'I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing.' "Don't you want your little Starkling to grow up in a world free from pollution and other environmental hazards? Remember the crying Indian? Don't make the Indian cry."

"I think you're supposed to say 'Native American,'" Bruce murmured.

"What-the-fuck-ever," Barton said and waved him off. "You fucking knew what I meant."

"He wasn't actually Native American, either," Bruce added. "I think his parents were Italian."

Barton rolled his eyes like he couldn't be bothered with the information while Wilson said, "Oh, hey, I remember that commercial! They used to show it when I was a kid."

"I do not understand," Thor said with a frown. "I have not heard of this famous Native of Midgard. Why might our brother Tony make him cry?"

"Iron Eyes Cody!" Barton said like he'd just remembered something, and Wilson nodded at him and said, "Yeah, that's right!"

Thor frowned at them, quirking his head as though to show that they hadn't answered his question at all, and Bruce said, "No, no, it was— It was an anti-pollution commercial from the '70s."

"Really?" Wilson said. "'Cause they showed it when I was a kid. You know. _After_ the '70s."

Barnes murmured something under his breath in Russian, which got Natasha to snort out a laugh that she attempted to cover up by clearing her throat, and Wilson turned on him and said, "Oh! Oh, no! We discussed this. You talk smack about me, you do it in English!"

Barnes stared at him a moment then said, "You could learn Russian."

"Or maybe I'll learn some language you don't know, and I'll talk shit about you."

"Or you two could try behaving like actual adults," Tony suggested.

Wilson scoffed, and Barnes looked at him and said, "Well, that's no fun."

"Far less entertaining for the rest of us, too," Barton agreed.

Natasha nodded her agreement, and even Bruce seemed to indicate that he found Wilson and Barnes' strange dick-measuring contest to be of some amusement to him.

Thankfully, the Bobbsey Twins' hourly pissing contest came to a halt with the arrival of Steve with what looked like two gallon containers of coffee and three boxes of doughnuts. His arrival was cheered by the peanut gallery before they all pounced, grabbing boxes of doughnuts and coffee and helping themselves to the feast.

"Hey!" Tony called above the commotion. "Those jellies have my name on them."

"Oh, yeah," Barton said as he popped open a box. "Right here. 'Property of Tony Stark.'"

"They knew who they were selling to," Tony said and fought through the cluster of Avengers trying to get food and drinks and plates and mugs. He made it to a box and snagged two of the jelly-filled, one powdered and one frosted, shoving the powdered one halfway into his mouth and taking a large and savory bite, the jelly squirting out over the sides of his mouth. He turned to face Steve, who was now standing at his elbow, and he grinned and chewed the bite, jelly slathered over his face and clumps of powdered sugar covering the front of his shirt.

Steve, the bastard, just leaned down and made like he was going to kiss him but instead licked the jelly away from his mouth.

"Hey!" he cried through a mouthful of doughnut and jelly. "That was mine, you son-of-a-bitch!" Steve just licked his lips and said, "Not anymore."

"Ugh, attacked in my own home," he muttered and shoved half of the remaining half of doughnut into his mouth. It was only then that he realized the others were…packing up to leave?

He frowned, chewing as he watched them load up plates with doughnuts and mugs with coffee and then make like they were heading back toward the living room.

He licked his lips to get the rest of the jelly and powder and finished the bite and said, "Hey, where the hell do you think you're going?"

They all stopped to look at him, and then there were several surreptitious glances to each other before a litany of muttered and mumbled excuses came his way. He didn't even bother to parse them. He knew they were all bullshit.

"Yeah, whatever. Seriously, you people act like you live here—"

"We do," Barton said.

"I _mean_ in the penthouse. Seriously, you act like you live up here, and now, all of a sudden, you can't get out of here fast enough?"

"Things to do, Stark," Barton said with an easy shrug. "Not all of us get waited on hand-and-foot by a gullible super soldier."

" _Gullible?_ " Steve murmured in insult behind him, but Tony scowled at Barton and the rest of the quickly-departing moochers and was about to open his mouth to tell them he was happy to see the backs of their heads because they spent too much time up there eating him out of house and home anyway, but they all left the kitchen, talking amongst themselves as they headed for the elevator.

Tony watched after them, staring, confused, and after the elevator door had closed behind the last one, he turned to Steve and said, "What the hell was that?"

"What?" Steve said as he went to pour himself a cup of coffee only to find the container was empty. He frowned and picked up the other one.

"That," Tony said and motioned with a doughnut in the direction of their departed comrades. "I'm serious. They practically _live_ up here. There's _food_ , and suddenly, they can't get out of here fast enough. What could _possibly_ be that interesting or that important that they have to drop everything to run out of here?"

He shoved the rest of the powdered jelly into his mouth as Steve said, "They didn't exactly _run_ out," and brought his mug of coffee to his mouth. He took a sip then added, "I thought you'd be happy. You're always threatening to change the locks to keep them out anyway."

He rolled his eyes and ignored that part, shoving half of the remaining doughnut in his mouth. He chewed and said, "It's the principle of the thing. Why now? Why today?" He reached out and took the mug of coffee Steve was offering to him, and startled a bit when he realized what Steve was doing. "Seriously?" he asked.

Steve gave a slight nod, a little smile on his face. "Seriously. This counts toward your twelve ounces, though."

"Whatever," he said and took a sip then went back to the matter at hand. "But what the hell? Why change what they've been doing since the dawn of time?"

Steve arched an eyebrow at him. "The _dawn of time?_ "

"Well, the dawn of the Avengers, anyway." He watched as Steve set his coffee down and went over to the fridge. "It doesn't strike you as at least a _little_ bit suspicious?"

"Yeah, it's a little suspicious," Steve conceded as he opened the door—

And that's when Tony saw it — _really_ saw it.

The little pastel blue swatch of paper on the fridge. The one Bruce had said was his to write a 'grocery list' on.

Oh, son-of-a—

He shoved the other half of the doughnut in his mouth and chewed while Steve pulled out the container of orange juice and poured a glass for both himself and Tony. He held one out to Tony, and Tony took it, unthinking, as he chewed and stared at the piece of paper on the door of the fridge.

"What?" Steve asked, and Tony could see him frowning in the periphery.

He swallowed the bite and nodded at the door. "That little blue piece of paper."

"Yeah, I saw it before I left this morning. Did you put that on there?"

"No," Tony said with a gentle shake of his head and set the mug of coffee down. "Bruce— You know what it is, don't you?"

Steve shook his head and grunted out a negative response as he stuck the orange juice back into the fridge.

As he closed the door, Tony took the slip of paper between his fingers, pinching it there to hold it as the door closed, the paper coming away from the polished steel and remaining between his fingers. He held it up to Steve and said, "Brucie's none-too-subtle way of telling the rest of the derelicts what the sex is."

Steve went still for a moment then frowned at the paper as he seemed to come back to himself. "Seriously?"

Tony motioned with the glass of orange juice in-hand in the direction the vagabonds had retreated once they'd taken their share of coffee and doughnuts.

"You weren't here when they all noticed it. Could've heard a fucking pin drop at how quiet they went. But you saw the way they practically ran out of here with all their bullshit excuses — like they couldn't get out of here fast enough."

"You think that's why they left?" Steve asked and took a large gulp of juice.

"I _know_ that's why they left. And you know they're downstairs somewhere gossiping about this like the bunch of old biddies that they are."

He sighed and set the juice down on the counter next to his coffee. "You know there's going to be a shower now, right? Where all the gifts are gender-neutral verging on more appropriate for a boy— well, more appropriate going by societal dictates?"

"A _shower?_ " Steve asked like the word was foreign to him and took another gulp of juice.

"Yeah. A baby shower. They had those back in the Mesozoic era, didn't they?"

Steve shot him a flat look at the age comment but then shook his head and said, "No. No showers."

"Wait, what? Why?"

Steve set his glass down as well, and he folded his arms, tucking his hands into his armpits. "I don't want them throwing any baby showers for you."

"Yeah, thanks." He patted Steve's bicep. "I really feel the love there, honey."

"That's not what I mean," Steve said, tilting his head forward a little as though to look at him from over a pair of glasses. "I don't— I just— I'm not taking that chance. Baby showers are— You're just asking for trouble with one."

Tony tried to parse through Steve's words, and when he thought he'd finally gotten it, he said, "Oh! This is an old-fashioned superstition thing, right?"

Some of the fight went out of Steve at that to be replaced by slight embarrassment, but he still held his ground and said, "Maybe it is. I just think it's bad luck to do anything like that before he's here. Once he's here, we can splurge on all the necessities — within reason, obviously — but I don't— Not before then. Not anything before then."

Tony frowned some, and he hummed a little and considered the little blue piece of paper in his hand then said, "OK, but if we're actually serious about doing this, we're going to need _some_ stuff before that. You know that, right?"

Steve shrugged. "As has been drilled into my head the last two years, we do live in an area that allows for same-day delivery."

"Yeah, on stupid shit. Furniture — 'cause maybe it was OK for people back in your day, but we're not letting our kid sleep in a fucking dresser drawer — is usually kind of excluded from that."

"A dresser drawer is perfectly adequate until we can get a crib or a bassinette," Steve countered like he was some kind of authority on the matter.

Tony thought about this a moment then said, "You know, here I thought I was doing such a good job pulling you into the twenty-first century, but you're doing everything you possibly can to pull me back to Five Points in the nineteenth."

"That's even before my time," Steve said with an amused smirk. "And don't exaggerate. Besides, I'm from Brooklyn."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Look, I'm not saying we should stock up on a full wardrobe and an entire toy room, and I'm not saying we even have to do it _now_ , I'm just saying it probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if we got something like a fucking _crib_ before everything…ends."

Steve stared at him a moment then said, "I'll think about it."

"Think about it all you want. We're still getting a goddamned bassinette."

"Maybe."

Tony just sighed and waved him off tiredly, like he couldn't be bothered to fight any longer. "Whatever," he muttered, but Steve was staring at him, funny, a little awed and a little bemused and even a little unsure. He winced away from the look and blinked and said, "What?"

"So, it's official, then?"

"Uh, what is?"

Steve's mouth parted into a small, tender smile, his entire face softening to gentle understanding. "It's a boy."

"Oh. Yeah," Tony said and looked again to the little blue piece of paper he held between his fingers. "I guess so."

Steve's eyes went just a little watery at that, and he reached out and folded Tony into a firm, warm embrace. Tony went with it, nestling his head against Steve's shoulder, trying to relax as Steve's arms wrapped around him, his hands firm and possessive over his back.

But the words didn't bring him relief or a sense of calm nor did they induce panic. They didn't do…anything, really. It was a boy. They were having a boy. Somehow, he knew he should have been relieved by this, but he wasn't. Actually, if anything, he was actually a little… _sad_.

And if it was a boy, then what the hell was Bruce aiming for with all that talk of _considering the possibility_ this morning? Trying to get a feel to see if Tony _really_ was hoping for a girl — for one girl in particular? See if Tony was still attached to that little ball of fire that had been taken from him much too quickly?

What a fucking asshole thing to do.

"I thought you wanted to be surprised?" he murmured, crumpling the small piece of paper in his hand and swallowing down something that felt a lot like remorse.

"I did," Steve said and brushed his lips over the crown of Tony's head. "But I mean— I'm OK with this, too. Besides, it's a boy, and that's what we wanted, right?"

Tony swallowed again, squeezing the piece of paper tighter if possible, and he closed his eyes and saw, just for a moment, a bruised and bloodied Steve Rogers from another timeline carrying a little blonde-haired spitfire through a red-tinged portal, promising her that when she opened her eyes again, her papa — her _real_ papa — would be right there waiting for her.

She never really had been his after all, had she? Fuck Bruce. Fuck Bruce for ever — _ever_ — trying to give him even the slightest bit of hope otherwise.

"Right."

~*~

Steve sighed and shook his head as he read over his tablet later that afternoon.

" _Love child_ ," he muttered, making that sour face that Tony only half-jokingly thought was becoming his normal look.

" _Love child?_ " Barton repeated. "That's kind of old-timey. They do that especially for you?"

Steve shot him a displeased look, and Barton shoved a spoonful of cereal in his mouth — two- forty-five in the afternoon, and he was shoveling Lucky Charms into his mouth — as Hill came into the kitchen, folder in-hand and serious look covering her face. She dropped the folder down in front of Steve, who looked up at her and said, "Is this all of them?"

"All the written ones," Hill replied, even and businesslike. "I have about five messages on my phone from Trish Walker's producer. I'm not even sure how she got the number."

"She's been pretty fair to you guys," Barton said and shoved another spoonful of cereal in his mouth. "Not like the _Bugle_ or— Who's the one that really has it out for you two?"

"Eh, you gotta narrow it down," Tony said. "Television, newspaper, radio, or blog?"

Barton was silent a moment before he said, "Yeah, there's a lot of 'em that don't like us. But I mean you two in particular." He motioned between Steve and Tony. "Who's the one that has it out for you two in particular?"

Tony exhaled a breath and thought about this a moment. "David Welch?" he said, giving the name of the old buzzard that had been a thorn in the Avengers' collective side since Day One. Tony hadn't paid attention to the old bastard too much — the rants of an old, senile former-hippy-turned-fervent-Reaganite didn't really rate high on must-read list — but he was well aware of the fact that he was out there poisoning the discourse, leading a one-man crusade for the Avengers' apprehension and permanent detention, preferably somewhere dark and dank.

"Seriously, what did we ever do to him?" Barton asked. "What did _you_ ever do to him? Call me crazy, but some of that shit comes off kinda personal. You didn't spend a magical night with him and then never call him again, did you?"

"What? Why do you think it's _me?_ " Tony asked, slightly insulted.

"OK, so, what, you're saying maybe he's got a thing for Cap and he's pissed that you got there first?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Why do you think it has _anything_ to do with that? Maybe he's just a miserable, old bastard?"

Barton shrugged but then asked, "Yeah, but are you _sure_ neither one of you did anything to insult him at any point prior to, well, _now?_ Because I gotta tell you, there's a part of me that thinks one of you ran over his dog or something."

Tony snorted a laugh. "I can't believe that old bloodsucker has ever shown affection for anything a day in his life." He turned to Steve. "Hey, maybe he was part of that vampire coven you had to vanquish during the war? Maybe you, you know, killed his bondmate or something?"

Steve just shot Tony a look before he went back to the folder, not even deigning to respond with words, and Barton said, "Him wanting to pork one of you is stupid, but him being a vampire is totally legit?"

"Uh, you do see the type of work we're in, right?" Tony said, and Hill added, "Man has a point."

Barton shook his head a little and went back to his cereal, digging his spoon in and pushing the pieces of marshmallow and toasted oat around in the bowl, and Tony continued, "Anyway, to be honest, I've met the guy in passing, like, a handful of times. And yeah, most of those times were back during my 'functional drunk' period, but I'm pretty sure I didn't do anything to bring shame upon the House of Stark as far as he was concerned."

Barton just shoved a spoonful of cereal in his mouth and said around it, "That Trish Walker's pretty hot, though. You should do her show."

Steve just exhaled a short breath through his nose as he looked through the folder. "That's not a valid reason for choosing her program," he said, his eyes scanning over printed request after printed request.

Tony slathered cream cheese on his bagel — hey, if Barton could eat breakfast food in the middle of the afternoon, then so could he — and said, "Yeah, but it might not be so bad. She's one of the few friendlies we've got, and at least it's radio. No pictures to worry about."

"That's not—" Steve said then shook his head, not looking away from the folder.

"True," Barton said. "No one needs to see another repeat of last night's Shake Shack incident." He shivered like it was one of the worst things he'd ever seen before something came to him, and he grabbed his phone and pressed a few buttons and swiped through a few screens then held the phone out to show Tony. "By the way, you're already a meme."

Tony glanced to the phone and looked over the shitty photo with white block text stating something the meme-maker presumably felt to be witty about 'Jabba the Slut,' and Tony slapped his knife down on the table and glared at Barton. Steve, his gaze never leaving the paper in front of him, said, casual, like he was just musing aloud, "You know, Buck's a pretty good shot. He was our sniper."

"Hey, I didn't _make_ the meme, all right?" he said and pulled his phone from Tony's view and turned to show Hill, who took one glance at it and rolled her eyes in disgust. "I just found it. Don't shoot the messenger. Or don't take the messenger's job away from him, at least."

He pocketed the phone again, and Steve said, "I still don't want to encourage them by helping to add 'hits' to the sites that post it. That was a candid photo taken at an inopportune moment and disseminated by someone that won't have to live with the consequences."

"What do you think's going to happen if you continue to go out in public?" Barton asked, making it sound as though Steve was being the idiot in this equation.

"We're human beings. I think we should be afforded some amount of privacy even when we go out to a burger joint."

"Yeah, you're not John and Jane Smith," Barton reminded him.

"Doesn't matter," Steve said with a curt shake of his head. Something popped up on his tablet, and he turned his attention away from the folder and swiped at the screen to read it. Tony just went back to slathering the other half of his bagel with cream cheese, and Steve clicked his tongue in disgust and said, "Where did this expression 'baby mama' come from?"

"Who knows?" Barton said and pushed at the cereal in his bowl again but didn't scoop up any. "But it's here to stay, Cap, so you'd better get used to it—" he pulled his spoon out of the bowl and pointed it at Steve, "—especially when they're talking about _your_ baby mama."

Steve just leveled him with the Stare of Disappointment.

"Technically, that's what he is," Barton said with an easy shrug.

"Yeah, but we're married," Tony reminded him then took the first bite of his bagel.

Barton shrugged again. "The public doesn't know that."

"He's right," Hill said, still standing at Steve's elbow. "As far as they know, Tony Stark disappeared several months ago and Steve Rogers has been seen around town — _including_ at an obstetrician's office — with a noticeably pregnant brunette female."

"That admittedly bears a resemblance to Tony Stark," Tony said.

Hill just shrugged. "It's not so obvious when you're not looking at it from that angle."

Steve glanced up at her. "Yeah, but the license on file is for Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. And one of these vultures _has_ to have found it by now."

"Doesn't fit their narrative," she replied.

"Which is?" Barton asked, and Hill motioned down to Steve's tablet, which currently had a story pulled up about Captain America's mysterious 'baby mama' and the speculation surrounding her. Tony reached out and turned the tablet so he could read it, and he skimmed the article and rolled his eyes at the various suppositions that it made — including that their relationship had merely been a way of securing funding for the team, that feelings had existed on Tony's side but not on Steve's, that Tony hadn't taken it well when Steve's relationship with the 'mystery brunette' had been found out, that it created internal strife within the organization, and that Tony Stark hadn't been seen in months due to a botched suicide attempt.

"Where do they come up with this shit?" he muttered and scrolled down the article a little further, stopping when he came to a 'quote' from Avengers team member, Clint Barton.

He glanced up at Barton, who was busy looking at the folder of requests with Hill and Steve and said, "You're quoted in this."

The three stopped cold and looked to Tony, and Steve stole a surreptitious and murderous glance at Barton as Barton said, "Yeah? What did I say?"

"Uh…" he looked back down and began to read, " _'The whole thing's falling apart. I don't know how much longer I can take it,' Avengers team member Clint Barton was quoted as saying recently_."

Steve's jaw did that grinding little twitch it did whenever he heard upsetting news, and Hill gave her most disappointed shake of the head. Barton sat there, his face gone slightly ashen, and he blinked a few times but said, "Yeah, I said that, but it wasn't about— It wasn't about _this_. It had nothing to do with this."

"What was it about?" Steve asked tersely, and Tony knew he was trying very hard to control his temper.

Barton fumbled for purchase with his thoughts before he said, "Look, it— It was a private conversation, all right?"

"With who?" Hill asked.

"No one," he answered quickly. "No one you know— A girlfriend."

Tony snorted a laugh. "Well, now I know you're lying."

Barton rolled his eyes. "Look, trust me. It had nothing to do with either of you or any of this. It was a _private_ conversation I was having _on my phone_ with—"

"Your girlfriend," Steve said, like he didn't believe a word of what Barton was saying.

"Yeah."

"About?" Tony asked, and Barton stared at him a moment before he began to laugh a little, kind of in a self-deprecating manner.

"A money pit," he said through his laughs, "to be perfectly honest. Don't ever buy a fixer-upper."

Steve just continued to stare at him, glaring at him, like he was trying to determine the validity and truthfulness of Barton's words, and Tony stared at him a moment and said, "Is _that_ where you went?"

Barton just shrugged.

"So, what, you have, like, this whole other life?"

"Eh, we all need hobbies. Nat has her ballet. Wilson does group therapy. Bruce seems to think he's a horticulturalist. Thor's a little _too_ fascinated by 'reality TV.' Barnes hasn't been here long enough for me to get a feel for what he does in his spare time. I…flip houses."

Tony arched an eyebrow at him. "With your girlfriend?"

"Yeah."

"What's her name?" Hill asked, sounding equal parts intrigued and under the firm belief that he was lying through his teeth, which he probably was as he hedged and stumbled a bit before he finally said a somewhat unsure, "Uh, _Laura?_ "

Hill twitched a flat smile like he'd just confirmed her suspicions, and Steve stared at him and said a firm and terse, "Where were you when you said this?"

"I don't know," he said and scoffed a little. "The grocery store, I think. It was right before I came back here."

"You mean when you got back from your vacation?" Tony said.

"Yeah."

"Flipping houses?"

"Yeah."

Steve continued to stare at him, and after a moment, he said, "Watch everything that you say. It would be different if the public didn't know who we were, but they do, and especially now, they're looking for any crack in our foundation they can possibly find, and they'll exploit it for all they think it's worth. It's bad enough they think there's something… _scandalous_ …about what's going on with me and Tony. They don't need to think it's affecting the rest of the team as well."

"Steve," Hill said, gentle, but with a knowing edge, and when Steve glanced up to meet her gaze, she looked just a shade remorseful as she continued, "you have to get ahead of this. You have to tell them the truth. Not just for yours and Tony's sakes but for the team's. Being fodder for the gossips is going to affect how well we're able to do our jobs."

Steve inhaled a deep breath through his nose and nodded. "I know," he muttered in tired resignation.

Hill put a hand to his shoulder and gave it a squeeze, but Steve turned his attention over to Tony and asked, "You're OK with this?"

Tony shrugged a little. "We've gone over it before, Steve. It's the way it has to be. Guess I really won't be able to leave the Tower now, huh?"

But Steve shook his head a little and said, "You're not a prisoner here—"

"No," he said with an exhale of breath, "but it's a hell of a lot safer than going out on the street and getting nabbed by Hydra or AIM or whoever's got their eye set on world domination this week."

He took another bite of his bagel, and Steve reached out and snagged a hold of his free hand and gave it a squeeze. Tony squeezed right back just as JARVIS intoned that Thor had arrived on the penthouse floor. He groaned around the half-chewed bite of bagel, and he whined and rolled his eyes and said, " _Ste-eve!_ "

"Then change the access code," Steve said and pulled his hand back to close up the folder. He glanced up at Hill and said, "Let me think about these. Anyone asks, tell them we're reviewing the requests. Don't say anything about making any decisions."

"You got it, Boss," she said and left, nodding 'hello' to Thor as she left the kitchen and he entered.

"Oh, good," Tony muttered. "More people to eat me out of house and home."

"You're a fucking billionaire," Barton muttered and dug into his cereal, but Tony just glared and bit into his bagel, ignoring the slight look of unease that had crossed Thor's face.

"My friends," he said as he set Mjolnir on the table, "I am afraid I return the bearer of bad news."

"Return?" Barton said and looked up at him. "Where the hell'd you go? You were just here a couple hours ago."

But Steve sighed a little and dropped his head, muttering, " _More?_ " under his breath, his shoulders slumping just the slightest in what looked like the early stages of defeat.

Tony just shrugged and chewed on his bagel and said, "No biggie. You discovered you like Toaster Strudel better than Pop-Tarts. Someone'll eat that shelf-full in the pantry." He nodded at Barton. "Hey, you want some Pop-Tarts for when you 'flip houses' with your 'girlfriend'?"

Barton pushed his soggy cereal around his bowl some more. "Why don't you just donate them to a good cause like a women's shelter or something?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "Yeah, that's what battered and abused women want. Pop-Tarts."

Thor frowned. "I enjoy the taste of both dependent upon my mood, but that is not what I meant."

"What's going on?" Steve asked, still looking a little resigned but clearly trying to steer the conversation back on the right track. "The scepter?"

Thor shook his head and sat in an adjacent chair. "Nay, still no word on that most dangerous implement. It is something...much more personal to you and the Man of Iron."

Steve tensed up beside him, and Tony sat up and turned his attention to Thor. "What are you talking about, big guy?"

Thor swallowed and frowned, his eyes offering his gravest sympathies. "My friends, I have just received word. The Goddess Esmeralda—"

" _Goddess_ ," Steve muttered like it offended him to even hear the word associated with her. But Tony groaned and said, "She's not making a return trip, is she?"

Thor shook his head. "Nay, I… I am sorry to inform you that she has once and for all been vanquished from the realms."

Tony made a 'whoop-de-do' motion with his hand, but Steve sucked in an audible breath. "What's that mean for us?" he asked, all business as always.

Thor darted his gaze to Tony a moment then turned back to Steve. "I am afraid the Man of Iron shall be…in that form for longer than intended."

Tony sat up more and set his bagel down. " _How_ much longer?" he asked, and Thor offered him nothing but a sympathetic look.

"Until death."

Something kind of funny hit him in the chest — hard — something that felt a lot like cold dread. He tried to suck in a breath but found he couldn't — not a good one — that funny thing sitting on his chest almost like a weight. Barton muttered something under his breath, and Steve let out the breath he'd taken, and Tony swallowed and looked between Steve and Thor and said, "What? Why? Don't I just go back after this—" he motioned to his belly, "—goes away?"

Thor shook his head. "It is not that simple. The Goddess Esmeralda cast the spell upon you to turn you into that form. Only she can reverse it to turn you back into the form that you once were."

He couldn't breathe. Goddamn it, why couldn't be breathe? Why weren't his lungs expanding? Why was it so hot in here all of a sudden?

"What? Bullshit! Half of your people dabble in that shit—"

"And the Goddess's spells are of an entirely different persuasion. Only she has the means to rescind them."

"What happened?" Steve asked. "How did she—?"

"I do not entirely know. I only know she ran afoul of someone she should not have." He directed his attention to Tony and added, "I'm sorry, my friend. I fear this is what you shall be 'til the end of your days."

Tony gasped in a breath and closed his eyes. Fuck.

_Fuck_.

"Yeah, I'm gonna go see if Wilson and Barnes have murdered each other yet," Barton murmured and presumably turned tail, leaving the kitchen at what sounded like breakneck speed.

"Are you sure?" Steve asked, the tone pure Captain America. "Are you absolutely certain about this?"

"Very," Thor replied, a tinge of sympathy coloring his voice. "The Goddess Esmeralda no longer lives among the nine realms. For all the well that she intends, she has made many an enemy that wishes to see her done harm. It appears her actions have finally caught up to her. She was, as I understand it, no match for the being that finally put an end to her ministrations." He was silent a moment before he added, more somberly, "I am deeply sorry, my friends, for what she has done. I should not wish to defend her in light of these circumstances, but you should know that she had only the best of intentions for you both. You are, as she saw it, that oldest and most celebrated of life essences, and this is, as she believed, the last piece needed to solidify that bond. And while it is true that there are many among the realms that practice the arts Midgardians refer to as 'magic,' the Goddess's spells are of an entirely different persuasion and cannot be undone by anyone but her."

Tony opened his eyes, and he met Steve's sad and nervous gaze for only a second before he stumbled off the chair and left the kitchen himself, swallowing once more and trying to pull in some semblance of a breath as he did so.

"Tony!" Steve called out behind him, and he turned just as he hit the elevator to see Steve standing just outside the kitchen.

"Just…" He swallowed yet again. At least he could swallow. He couldn't breathe, but he could swallow. "Give me some time, OK?" he asked, and Steve held his gaze a moment before he nodded his understanding, and Tony turned and stepped onto the already-opened elevator, Barton presumably having taken the stairs.

He didn't even have to ask JARVIS to take him down to the lab. JARVIS had seemingly read his mind, as the next time the doors opened, it was to his lab level.

He stumbled off, gasping once more for a breath he just couldn't seem to get, and he fumbled over to a worktable and grabbed onto it, bracing himself against it, holding fast to it, his fingers turning white from the pressure as he gripped the edge.

A woman.

He looked down at himself, at the breasts and the swell of his belly and the long, dark hair falling in his face.

A woman. For the rest of his life.

No. Just— Dear god, he couldn't do it. He couldn't fucking do it. This wasn't— He wasn't— This had only been manageable or tolerable because he'd known it wouldn't last forever. He'd have this baby that Esmeralda claimed would 'complete' his relationship with Steve (which was already complete enough, thank you very much), and he'd go back to being the man he was, and that would be that — no 'ifs,' 'ands,' or 'buts' about it. No, it hadn't been the worst experience in the world, and there were a great many things he'd found he enjoyed about being in a female body — indulgences and desires society would look askance at when he was a man — but it wasn't permanent. It wasn't supposed to be permanent. It was supposed to be a temporary thing that would end when he'd finished the task Esmeralda had set forth for him, and that had made it tolerable or bearable or something that didn't make him want to jump off a bridge.

But to be permanent — for it to be _permanent…_

Look, it had definitely been an experience. He could say that for certain. And it hadn't been a _bad_ experience, really. In fact, overall, morning sickness and weight gain and Barton perving on his breasts aside, it had been a rather enjoyable experience.

But that didn't mean he wanted to _stay_ this way. Or he didn't think he did.

God, it was so confusing. It was so fucking confusing. Maybe if this had been an abomination of an experience. Maybe if it had been the worst thing imaginable. Maybe if it had been nothing but misery he could have said without pause that he couldn't wait to get back to his male body and never wanted to look back.

But he couldn't.

He couldn't say that because it hadn't been an abomination or the worst thing imaginable or nothing but misery. It hadn't been a revelation, necessarily, but it hadn't been an abomination, either. It had actually been...kind of fun. The sex was definitely nothing to complain about, and dressing up and playing with makeup was kind of fun, and getting Steve to practically wait on him and-and-foot was pretty fun, and people not saying a goddamned word if he took a nap in the middle of the day was nice as fuck.

But that didn't mean he wanted to _stay_ like this the rest of his life.

Still, like so many other things in the past several months, that choice had been taken away from him, too — the choice whether or not to go back to the way he'd been — even if he was pretty sure Thor knew _someone_ that could twitch their nose or blink their eyes for him no matter what he said. Someone in the whole of the cosmos outside of the Goddess Esmeralda had to be able to undo this spell. Of course, with his luck, they'd fuck it up and he'd end up with a tail or something or some weird hybrid, and honestly, if that was the case, he'd probably stick to being a woman.

Again, nothing he couldn't do in this body that he could do in his male body.

Well, except pee standing up, now that he thought about it. That was one thing he couldn't do. He couldn't pee standing up. God, squatting was a pain in the ass. Women did _not_ know what they were missing just being able to stand and take a leak and go on their business. No, there was squatting and wiping and getting back up and flushing the toilet and— ugh, it was just so, so _unnecessary_. Wasted time is what it was.

And speaking of having to pee…

He went over to the adjacent bathroom and did his business, and it was as he was washing up that he caught sight of himself in the mirror ahead of him. He stared at the woman that stared back at him, at her long, thick hair and the soft curves of her face then shifted his gaze down to the rather prominent bulge of swollen breasts that ached and an abdomen that had gotten so big it had begun to push out his belly button. Not taking his eyes off his belly, he shut the water off in the sink then put his damp hands to the swell, rubbing it gently, feeling the movement going on within, the diamonds and sapphires on his left hand glinting in the light. He swallowed, feeling a jab against the side of his abdomen, and he pushed a finger back against it.

So, this wasn't her after all.

Not that he'd ever really _believed_ , but maybe, in the far reaches in the back of his mind he'd kind of _hoped_ …

But Bruce had put the kibosh on that earlier, hadn't he? Oh, sure, it was supposed to be a secret, but he wasn't stupid, and neither was Steve. He still didn't understand what Bruce's aim had been this morning, though. Was he trying to dig the knife in a little deeper? Did he actually think he was _helping?_ Was it some stupid thing to do with _science?_ Whatever it was, if he was being honest with himself, it had given him just the tiniest glimmer of hope that he couldn't even admit to himself let alone anyone else.

Maybe, through it all, maybe this was the little girl he'd fallen in love with all those years ago? Maybe she had always been his after all?

But clearly not, as it turned out. It was an impossibility. Bruce had already confirmed that this morning, and besides, that little girl had had a 'papa' that she'd loved dearly, a 'papa' that had been nearly identical in appearance to the way Tony had looked before all this had been done to him. It didn't matter that that Steve Rogers kissed the way his did or cradled his head the way his did. It didn't matter that that little girl was _clearly_ the child of the Steve Rogers he knew in spirit and his in appearance. She was from another time and place. She wasn't his. She never had been.

He swallowed down the tears that were threatening to bubble to the surface, his hands running over a belly he suddenly, irrationally, hated.

Hated not because of the circumstances of its existence but because it wasn't _her_. It was someone else — someone… _inferior_.

He shook his head. That wasn't fair. That wasn't fair at all. This was a miracle — his and Steve's miracle — and it didn't matter if it wasn't that same little girl that had stolen his heart all those years ago. Some insane creature from the cosmos had felt he and Steve to be so perfectly suited to one another — to be actual 'soul mates' — that she'd taken it upon herself to give one of them a form that would allow them to conceive a child of their love, the highest and most sacred measure two soul mates could undertake — in her mind, anyway. And they'd conceived with ease — maybe a little _too_ easily. And Steve…

As against the measure as he might have been at the beginning, Tony knew Steve wanted this baby. He wanted a son. He wanted a _family_ — and not just the family he had with the Avengers, but his own family, people to call 'his' and people to take care of and watch over and fight and defend and protect. Steve wanted it so badly he could probably taste it. He might have been nervous or scared or angry at the outset, but right now, at this moment in time, Steve was probably secretly fantasizing about the time to come when he'd be able to rock his little James Anthony to sleep.

Because Steve wanted a son, and didn't they say it was the 'man' that decided what sex it would be anyway? God, he probably didn't even have any sperm that carried 'X' chromosomes. They were probably all strong, virile 'Y's. OK, clearly in that other universe, _that_ Steve Rogers had sperm that carried 'X' chromosomes, but not here. For all he knew, _that_ Steve Rogers was an anomaly.

An anomaly that somehow kissed and smelled and felt just like his.

He rubbed his abdomen some more and closed his eyes. He thought he'd been lying yesterday when he'd told Natasha he had a 'gut' feeling that this was a boy. He thought he'd been lying because, much as he was afraid to admit it, his 'gut' feeling was that it was a girl. And that disheartened him just as much as saying 'boy' because he was certain that this girl wasn't _that_ girl.

But there was no way that little slip of powder blue paper stuck to his fridge was anything other than a signal from Bruce to the others that Tony and Steve had no more reason to argue over whether it should be 'Sarah Maria' or 'Maria Sarah.' Bruce, in what he probably thought was a 'subtle' way, had informed that gang of idiots of what he knew the sex of the gestating Stark- Rogers to-be, probably hoping Steve and Tony were too caught up in their own issues to notice.

Oh, but they had noticed, and they had drawn the same conclusion the other freeloading moochers had. It was a boy. They were having a boy.

About the only upside Tony could see to that at the moment was that Barton had lost his stupid fucking bet.

He choked out a laugh, unsure of why he even felt the need to do it to begin with, but all that did was break open the dam, and the laugh morphed into something a little more dour and disheartened until he was clutching at the sink, leaning on it, head bowed as he sobbed out all the disappointment and remorse he'd been doing so much to tamp down from the moment he'd realized Bruce had known it was a 'boy' but had still been doing all that he could to get Tony to believe that _maybe_ , just _maybe_ it was that little girl that had begged him for shield waffles and sat at his coffee table, drawing pictures of her daddy and her papa and her baby sister and her various aunts and uncles.

It was stupid to cry about. He knew it was stupid to cry about. There were worse things to cry over in life, and he could still hear his fucking father's voice in his head lambasting him, _You want people to think you're some kind of pansy? Some limp-wristed little fag? Chin up, boy. Stark men don't cry_.

He had to choke out a laugh at that through his tears. God, Howard would probably blame him for turning Steve gay or something. No way in hell was Captain fucking America some kind of _limp- wristed fag_. Tony, clearly, had turned him that way, had made him into that, had put those thoughts in his head.

Just another one of those glaring imperfections that had made Howard dislike him so. At least his mother had loved him, even if she would have been disappointed — not that he'd been 'knocked up,' necessarily, but that his father's obsession had been the one to do it.

_Oh, my darling. Of all people, why_ him?

There was no tub to sit on in this bathroom — only a shower stall — so Tony went over to the toilet, and he closed the lid and sat down on it, hugging his arms around himself as he cried for the loss of a life that was never his to start with and maybe even a little bit for an existence that would never be his again. And that was where, after some time, when he'd cried out everything he was certain that he could, Steve found him, standing in the doorway to the bathroom looking equal parts sad and uneasy.

Tony, his eyes puffy and his face a little achy from the sobs, looked up at him, and he wordlessly wiped away the tears from his face as Steve took a hesitant step into the bathroom. He watched Tony for a moment then folded his arms tight against his chest, tucking his hands into his armpits, and said a quiet and low, "You OK?"

Tony shrugged. "Don't have a choice, do I?" he said, and he knew Steve thought he was only upset at being consigned to this body for the rest of his life, not that he'd finally come to accept or realize…

Steve didn't even give the impression of trying to fight that insinuation. He just took a deep inhale of breath and pushed further into the bathroom.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Not your fault," Tony said and pulled some toilet paper off the roll, wiping his eyes with it before he blew his nose, loud and honking, then tossed the used tissue at an adjacent wastebasket. Steve frowned at that, looking like he wanted to reach out and comfort but thought maybe the touch would be unwelcome.

Tony couldn't honestly say that presumption wasn't right.

So, Steve just stood there, hands still tucked into his armpits, staring at the floor, and said, "I think we're definitely gonna have to tell them the truth now. And soon — sooner than I might have liked."

Tony nodded and hugged his arms around himself some more, rocking himself gently in some odd means of trying to self-soothe. "Don't think we have a choice."

"Do you want me—"

"No," he said quickly, stilling his gentle rocking motions. "No, I want to do it."

"You sure?"

"I mean, I want your support, but I want to do it."

Steve nodded his understanding then said, "Who do you want Maria to—"

Tony shook his head. "No, press conference."

Steve looked at him, pain and a little concern written over his face. "You think that's a good idea?"

He shrugged again. "Not really, but it's no worse than the alternatives. The world wants to see Tony Stark, know what happened to Tony Stark, find out who this mysterious 'Natasha Carbonell' is. Let's give them what they want. I mean, granted, I'll have a _huge_ target painted on my back now for sure—"

"No," Steve said and shook his head.

"No, babe, I will—"

"No, you—"

"Honey, I'm going to go out there and tell the world I'm Tony Stark, I'm a woman now and forever, and I'm pregnant with Captain America's child. I'll have every Hydra or AIM or god-knows-what-else faction coming out of the woodwork to try and kidnap me."

"Maybe," he said, not budging from his resolve, "but they're not going to."

"Honey, I'm carrying the child of the ultimate super soldier."

"Doesn't matter."

"No, it does—"

"It _doesn't_ ," Steve practically hissed at him, and Tony winced back a little at his rather harsh tone. Steve seemed to understand that he'd gone a little overboard, and he said, "Sorry, I just— I'm not letting Hydra or anyone else get you. They want you, they gotta go through me, and I'm a stubborn son-of-a-bitch. I don't like people taking what's mine any more than you do, and you're mine. I don't care if you don't think you are. You're mine to protect and defend and love and honor and cherish, and that's that. Hydra or any of them can take what's mine over my dead body, and based on the fact that there were at least half-a-dozen failed programs in the last seventy years designed to replicate the super soldier program, I have a feeling for their aims, they'd very much want me alive."

"They'd want to breed us," Tony said, reminded of that awful dream he'd had at the cabin.

"Yeah. And that's not gonna happen. You get pregnant with any more of my children, it's going to be because we've talked it out and discussed it and decided that we want to expand our family. You're not just going to be a womb to grow more super soldiers in."

Tony snorted out a laugh and rubbed his hands over his belly. "Fuck, and I thought that was just a bad dream. I didn't think it was going to be prophetic."

"It's not. No one is going to lock us away in a lab and breed us until we're past our expiration dates — not Hydra or AIM or any other group that might be hiding out there in the shadows."

"Actually, they just took _several_ samples from you and got rid of you."

Steve leveled him with a flat look.

"I'm just saying. In the dream, that's what happened."

"Well, it was a stupid dream that has no basis in reality. Hydra wants either of us, they're going to have a fight on their hands, and I've been known to play dirty."

Tony just nodded, but as Steve reached out to help him up from where he sat, dogged determination drawn over his face, Tony could only think of one thing.

So was Hydra.


	22. Chapter 22

* * *

While the details for Tony's big revelatory press conference were being worked out (Steve wanted every 'I' dotted and 'T' crossed if they were really going out there like that), Tony thought it might be fun to get the public worked up a little bit first.

He started by inviting himself to an event.

Bruce had a friend, who had a friend, who had a mother, who had a sister, who had been a photographer of some note back in the '60s. Bruce's friend had a portrait gallery, and though the photog herself was long gone, the sister had in storage dozens upon dozens of plates and negatives and prints from her work, and as it was fifty years since the start of the so-called 'British Invasion,' Bruce's friend wanted to do a retrospective of icons from the '60s music scene and had hit the sister up for prints to showcase.

Steve had actually been the only one Bruce had originally invited to the event, figuring, of the two of them, Steve was the artist and would be the one more inclined to appreciate the work than Tony ever could.

(Which was totally not true. Tony still had that magnificent work of modern art — the Iron Man portrait — hanging up in his lab. No one could tell him that wasn't art — not Pepper, not Steve, not anybody. And both Steve and Pepper had told him many, many times.)

Granted, an exhibit opening at a gallery wasn't exactly much to get people excited about, and not only was it not Tony's preferred way to spend an evening (foot rubs and gelato were where it was at as of late), but it was doubtful that Tony's appearance there would even get picked up by anyone outside of the 'art crowd.' Still, Tony wanted to go to the gallery with Steve, who, knowing Tony's overall opinion of anything that constituted 'art,' just looked at him like he'd suddenly grown two more heads and said, "Are you sure?"

"It's just pictures of dead and now-geriatric rock stars. It can't be _that_ awful— And why do _you_ even want to go? You don't even like that kind of music!"

Steve shrugged and said a quiet, "I don't _mind_ it."

Liar.

"Besides," he continued, ignoring Steve's blatant falsehood, "you and Brucie will be there if I get bored."

But Steve frowned some and said, "Are you sure you wouldn't be happier staying home? You know how tired you've been getting lately."

Tony tilted his head in slight bemusement. "I'm sorry. Do you not _want_ me there with you?"

"What? No, that's not what I—"

"I thought you said 'together,' Steve? You and me, together? You said that's how we would deal with this. You promised, Steve."

"I was talking about the pregnancy."

Tony faked a gasp and rubbed a hand over his belly. "And are you trying to say this _isn't_ related to the pregnancy?"

Steve gave a curt nod of his head. "I'm trying to say this isn't related to the pregnancy."

Tony faked another gasp and continued to rub his belly. "Steven! How could you? Here I am, trapped in this rather well-designed and energy efficient tower—"

"Honey, I love you, and I respect you, but this building is an ugly block of plate glass and twisted metal."

"—and all I'm asking is to attend a portrait gallery exhibit with my sweet and handsome husband, who it turns out is completely embarrassed to be seen with me in public—"

"I never said any such thing!"

"—and sure, yeah, OK, maybe get more people talking about Captain America being seen out and about with someone that is, what they think, not Tony Stark because, you know, it's not like I have a _choice_ with this anymore."

Steve shot a pointed look at him, though there was a tinge of sorrow and apology there behind blue-green eyes.

"I promise I'll be good. I'll even pretend to be interested."

Steve just continued to stare at him, his look going from pointed to flat.

"Did you ever think that _maybe_ I just want to spend time with you?"

Flat changed to disbelief.

"I love you."

Disbelief changed back to flat.

"OK, could you maybe go back to using your words? You're not saying a damned thing, and yet, I'm the one feeling like the idiot here."

"You don't say?" Steve mused, and Tony rolled his eyes.

"Look, it's either this or a lunch date, and I'll make you take me to one of those really fancy, high- end places where the entire entrée fits on a teaspoon."

"You won't do that," Steve said with a shake of his head, "and we both know you won't do that."

Tony folded his arms. "Yeah, and why's that?"

Steve was quiet a moment before he tweaked a small, slightly embarrassed smile, and he scratched the back of his head and said, "Because I may have gone a little too overboard—"

"Because you created a scene."

"I did not create a scene."

" _Really?_ " he said, squeaking out the word because damn this voice. "Is that how you remember it?"

"I remember very plainly stating my case to the manager that the prices they were charging for their hors d'oeuvres were a bit exorbitant."

"You called it 'highway robbery,' and you bitched about the entire menu. You made them _cry_ , Steve."

"I did not make them cry."

"OK, look, I'm going to clue you in on a little something. That wet stuff that people leak from their eyes? Those are called 'tears.' It means they're crying because they're upset."

Steve chuckled a little and said, "They were not crying, Tony. Don't exaggerate. They were just a little nervous I was going to give them an unfavorable review."

"Whatever," he said unfolding his arms and and waving his hands in the air like he was wiping away the conversation. "Look, are you taking me to one of those joints or am I going with you and Brucie to this boring-ass— Wait! No! That's not the word!" he cried at Steve's pointedly raised eyebrows. "This highly intellectual and stimulating show of appreciation for some dead chick with a camera?"

Steve just stared at him some more, and he smiled and clasped his hands to his chest, the gesture, he was hoping, coming off humble and slightly submissive.

He was not above playing to Steve's more dominating and possessive side.

Finally, after what seemed like ages that Steve stood there staring at him, evidently weighing various pros and cons in his mind, he heaved out a sigh. "Can you be ready to leave here by six?" he asked, sounding resigned to the fact that he wasn't in any way talking his way out of this one.

"With bells on!"

"Please don't wear actual bells," he heard Steve mutter after he'd turned to go and make himself look presentable. He stopped a moment and gave consideration to looking for the elf's hat with the jingle bells on it that Barton had been wearing at last year's Christmas party. Steve didn't want him wearing bells? He'd wear the most obnoxious and jingly hat anyone had ever seen.

But then he remembered that these photos were probably going to end up splashed all over websites and television programs, and he heaved out a breath and continued on his way.

But he was definitely digging out that hat to annoy the fuck out of Steve with sometime before the holiday arrived again.

He actually wasn't ready until quarter-after-six, dressed in the most chic and sophisticated maternity wear his ill-gotten gains could buy, a splash of makeup on his face (he really, _really_ liked playing with makeup) and his dark hair pulled back in a twist achieved with Natasha's patient help (and hairspray — holy shit, hairspray!). Steve didn't hold it against him too much, clearly too taken by how adorable and gorgeous Tony had made himself if the adoring look was anything to go by, and evidently Steve hadn't run it past Bruce that Tony was going to be attending as well, as when they met him down in the garage not long after, the most Bruce could muster was a confused, "Uh?" as he looked at Steve but pointed at Tony.

"He insisted," Steve said with a slight shrug, and Bruce continued to stare at him in confusion for a moment before he turned to Tony and said, "Tony, you do know this is an _art show_ , right?"

"Yeah, yeah," he muttered with a breezy wave of his hand and made to climb into the driver's seat but was stopped by Steve's hands on his arms. He cleared his throat and arched an eyebrow and said from behind rose-tinted sunglasses, " _Steven?_ "

"No," Steve said and steered him over to the passenger side. "I let you drive, we'll end up detouring through who-knows-where, and then, well, look at that! We missed the show."

Tony faked a gasp. "I said I'd be good!"

"Yeah, yeah," Steve muttered and pulled the door open. He stood there expectantly as he waited for Tony to climb in, and knowing he wasn't getting around the determined six-foot super soldier crowding him in, he sighed and sat down in the passenger seat.

As Steve closed the door and went back around to the driver's seat, Tony glanced in the back to see Bruce already buckling up, and before he could say anything, Bruce said, "I think you'll like it, anyway. She wasn't active very long, but she's got some great shots from Monterrey Pop and other stuff. Spent some time in London, too, so she's got some great candid shots of the Beatles and the Stones and all of them. I don't know if the sister's going to be there — she's the one that owns all the stuff. I told Ella that Steve was coming with me to the show. Don't know if she passed the news along."

Tony nodded and, as Steve got into the car, said, "Who the hell is Ella?"

Steve shot him a look, but Tony ignored it as Bruce explained, "My friend with the gallery. Her friend, Tony, is the nephew of the woman that took the pictures."

"Wait, _me_ -Tony, or her _friend's_ name is 'Tony'?" he asked as Steve stared the car and pulled out of the spot.

Bruce just gave him a look. "You're not the only 'Tony' in the world."

"I'm the only one that matters. Right, babe?"

He smiled over at Steve, who shot him another look but said nothing as he pulled the car out of the garage and onto the street.

"Still think it's a waste to drive over there," Steve said as he pulled a pair of sunglasses over his eyes. "We could walk just as easily, and it would do us good."

Tony put a hand to his belly. "You're going to make me walk down to SoHo in _my_ condition?"

"Walking's the best exercise you can get," he said.

"Again, _Midtown_ to _SoHo_ in _my condition?_ "

"Sure," Steve said with a grin. "Couple of nice, brisk miles will do wonders for you."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying I'm _fat_ , Captain?"

"Tony, I don't think he's actually calling you _fat_ ," Bruce murmured from the back seat, but Tony ignored him.

"I am _pregnant_ with _your child_ , Captain. I will _thank you_ not to refer to me as _fat_."

"I didn't call you fat," Steve said, earnest and matter-of-fact. He glanced over a second. "And put your seat belt on."

Without a word, Tony grabbed the belt and pulled it over himself, clicking it on and adjusting the way it rested over his belly. "You _just_ said a couple of brisk miles would do wonders for me," he said, fighting to keep from snapping at Steve to put _his_ belt on, too. That was an argument he hadn't won yet, and he didn't feel like getting into it tonight. They didn't have seat belts back in his day? Yeah, well, they didn't have Wi-Fi back in his day, either, and yet he was perfectly fine using _that_.

"You're deliberately misreading my intention," Steve said in that same matter-of-fact tone. "I was not calling you _fat_. I was just saying—"

"I know what you were saying," Tony said and sat back in the seat, waving a hand in the air. "I think we all know what you were saying, and it disgusts me. I'm disgusted. Here I am, _pregnant_ with your child, and you're making cracks about how _fat_ —"

"I did not call you 'fat'!" Steve said with a laugh. "Stop that. Bruce is going to think you're being serious."

"I am serious, Steven. I'm very serious. I'm very serious about the fact that you're calling me _fat_ when I am _pregnant_ with—"

"You already said that."

"It bears repeating. That's a terrible thing to say, and you should be ashamed of yourself."

"Please stop," Bruce whined from the back seat.

"Stop what, peach pit?"

He glanced back in time to see Bruce's face contort into a look of utter and abject confusion before he shook his head and said, "The flirting."

"Flirting?"

"Seriously, it's— It was kind of amusing when you two first started going out, but now it's just— We get it. You're horny for each other. You want to fuck. You're already married. Just stop with the flirting already, _please_."

Tony shared a look with Steve before he turned back to Bruce. "Wait, you think this is flirting?"

"I know it is, and it's just…really tough to take after two solid years of it. Not that I or any of the others don't want anything but the best for you two, but isn't the honeymoon over yet?"

"We never actually got a honeymoon," Tony said then looked at Steve. "Holy shit, we never took a honeymoon."

"Well, we're not going now," Steve said, giving him a sideways glance for only a moment before his concentration was back on the road ahead of him.

"You're no fun," Tony said and waved Steve off with a blasé motion of his hand but then added, "But when we do go — 'cause we're going — where do you want to go? Belize? Bora Bora? Bermuda? Some other magical tropical isle that starts with a 'B'?"

"Brooklyn?" Steve suggested, his mouth twisted into a wry smile.

"Don't even joke about that. I'll drag you down to fucking Fort Lauderdale if I have to."

"I think you guys are too old for that," Bruce offered from the back.

"Uh, Steve and I could totally party it up like a couple of drunk college kids on spring break."

"In _that_ condition?" Steve asked and directed a knowing look at Tony's belly.

Tony rolled his eyes and said, "Yeah, well, clearly we're waiting until this whole thing…passes."

Steve shot him another knowing look over the metal rim of his dark aviators and said, "You know where it's got to pass through, right?"

Tony blinked at exactly what Steve was implying, and he said, "Uh, they're called cesareans."

"Yeah," Bruce chimed in from the back, "they don't really like to do them unless they have to, though."

Tony turned to glare at him. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did you really think anyone was asking for your expert input?"

" _Tony_ ," Steve murmured, but it apparently wasn't necessary as Bruce just smiled a little at Tony like his snippy comment hadn't harshed his buzz in any way.

Son-of-a-bitch had taken a toke before he'd gotten in the car, hadn't he?

"Well, you have begged me _several_ times in the past—"

Tony rolled his eyes and didn't even dignify such a stupid comment with a valid response.

"But I'm just saying," Bruce continued in his normal logical and even way. "Doctors like to encourage vaginal deliveries. They really only like to do cesareans if they absolutely have to."

Tony arched an eyebrow at him. "I take it these are all doctors _without_ uteruses or vaginas?"

Bruce twitched an amused smile at him. "Not all of them, Tony. It's still the safest—"

"Yeah, well, we'll see if that's still the way you feel when you have to push something the size of a watermelon out of something the size of a straw."

"It's bigger than a straw," Bruce said like Tony was exaggerating or something. "And it stretches."

"Yeah? Does it stretch _back?_ Or are we talking the dry-rotted waistband of a thirty-year-old pair of sweatpants?"

Bruce sighed a little and shook his head, but he shot Tony a pointed look and said, "You're not that ignorant of anatomy."

"In theory? No. In practice? I'm sorry, of the people in this car, which one is a) pregnant and b) obligated to see that pregnancy through 'til its natural conclusion?"

"You are _not_ the first person in the world to go through this, Tony."

Tony motioned over himself — at his belly and his breasts and his general south-of-the-border area — and said, "You know I didn't have any of this a year ago, right?"

But Bruce just smiled at him and said, "Physically, you have all the attributes of a human female, and in that case, you are not the first human female to go through this. That doesn't mean you can't be scared or nervous. I guarantee you anyone going through this says they're not, they're lying through their teeth."

"Yeah, well," he grumbled and turned back around to sit in his seat the right way. As soon as he had, Steve reached over and snagged hold of his hand, and he brought it up to his lips and kissed it right over his ring finger where his wedding band had sat until that morning, not taking his eyes off the road. Tony watched as Steve frowned when his lips met skin instead of gemstone and metal, and he brushed his fingers over the bare joint and said, "Where's your ring?"

As Steve let go of his hand, Tony reached down to his neck and hooked a finger around the silver chain that lay there, his diamond-and-sapphire band hanging from it. Steve glanced over and caught the motion before he turned back to the road, and said, "How come?"

Tony huffed. "If you _must_ know, it was getting a little… _tight_ …on my finger, so I took it off before it got too tight and constricted the blood flow and it ended up falling off."

"I don't think that can happen," Steve murmured and made a sour face at pedestrians taking their time as he tried to make a right onto another street.

"Well, I didn't want to chance it," Tony said and eyed over his bare left hand. "My hands look fat. Are they fat?"

"You might be retaining some fluid," Bruce murmured from the back. "It happens. Have you done… _any_ …reading  about this?"

"Uh, no. Steve does, and then he tells me about it. He's a good husband like that."

Steve glanced at Bruce in the rearview mirror and said, "I've been trying to get him to read stuff for months now. He won't."

"Uh, that's what I have _you_ for. You think I married you for your sparkling personality? No. I married you for your body and for the fact that you're a detail-obsessed pain-in-the-ass."

As Steve slowed the car to a stop at a red light, he glanced over to Tony and said, a smirk tugging at his lips, "Well, good. I don't feel so bad for marrying you for your money now."

Tony matched his smirk and went to smack him, but Steve caught his hand and held it in a firm but still somehow gentle grip, and their gazes met over the top rims of their sunglasses before they moved as one, leaning toward each other and meeting in the middle, sealing their union with a kiss.

"Oh, I'm going to be sick," Bruce moaned from the back seat.

They broke the kiss as the car behind them sounded its horn to alert them to the change of light, and as Steve pulled the car through the intersection, Tony turned to Bruce and said, "You're going to miss us when we're gone, you know."

"Now, where have I heard that before?" Bruce mused with a small smile.

As was no surprise to anyone, there wasn't any decent parking near to the gallery, and so Steve double-parked and let Tony and Bruce out in front of the gallery entrance, telling them he'd find a spot for the car and meet them inside. He drove off once some impatient cab driver nearly rammed the back of the Audi to get Steve to move, and Bruce nodded toward the door and said, "Come on," and led the way over.

Tony adjusted his bag on his shoulder and followed Bruce over to the quaint street-level gallery, leaving his rose-tinted glasses on as they stepped inside.

It looked like pretty much every gallery Tony had ever been in: white walls; pale hardwood floors; crisp, clean lighting; a very staid and clinical atmosphere. The only real sense of color about the place came from the assortment of plant life scattered here and there — a ficus here, a philodendron there. Even the informational materials presented about the show — the placard at the front, the captions along the way — were devoid of almost anything resembling color. The photographs were, of course, all black-and-white.

There was something almost new-age-y playing from unseen speakers, and a handful of assorted people were already standing around pointing at photographs and making quiet conversation to one another. There was a thin woman with a dancer's body standing with one pair of guests, her flaxen hair pulled back into a tight bun, and she turned when she sensed more people had arrived and smiled when she spotted Bruce by the entrance to the show. She excused herself from the conversation then made her way over, her clothing sleek but somehow flowy — was she wearing a poncho? No, it wasn't called a 'poncho' in women's fashion. Was it? — and she held her hands out and said, "Bruce! I'm so glad you could make it!"

Bruce took her hands, and they greeted each other in the very European tradition of a kiss on each cheek (even if the woman's accent _clearly_ indicated she was a native to somewhere in the tri-state area) before she pulled away and then frowned as she glanced around.

"I thought you said Captain Rogers was accompanying you?"

"He did— He is. He's parking the car."

"Oh," she said, brightly, smiling. She turned to Tony, and she held her hand out and said, "I don't believe we've met. Ella Greenburg."

Tony took her hand and said, "Natasha Carbonell," in return, but Bruce shook his head and said, "No, it's not."

But the woman grinned at Tony, her eyes lighting up in delight and intrigue as she kept hold of Tony's hand. "So _you're_ the infamous Natasha Carbonell!"

"Eh, not exactly," Bruce said, scratching at the side of his neck.

Ella frowned and looked between them. "She's not?" she asked Bruce before she turned to Tony. "You're not?"

"Oh, no, I am," Tony said before Bruce could spoil his fun any more. "I am totally the woman that's been hanging off Captain America's very muscular arm for the past several months."

A couple of the others in the gallery turned to him at that but said or did nothing otherwise, and Ella's gaze pointedly went down to Tony's abdomen. Tony followed, matching her gaze with his own, and he put a hand on his belly and said, "He might be a hundred, but he's clearly not _dead_."

" _Tony_ ," Bruce said with a pained sigh.

"Tony?" Ella asked, confusion drenching her voice.

"It's a _long_ story," Tony said, "mostly involving magic and space goddesses — but don't use that term around Steve 'cause he gets pissy about it — and being 'soul mates'—" he used finger quotes on the term, "—with each other." And then, before she could ask anything else, he motioned to the prints that surrounded them and said, "So, what's this all about?"

Ella's confusion remained a moment more before it seemingly abated as she shook her head to clear her mind of the weirdness, and her face lit up as she came into her element. " _These_ represent the life's work of O. L. Edwards," she said and led them over to the introductory panel of the gallery. "She went by her initials because she was afraid she wouldn't be taken seriously if it was known she was a woman."

She stopped just beside the introductory panel featuring what could only be a self-portrait of a gorgeous blonde with long hair and dark eyes — one of those taken-in-the-mirror photographs that people even in the modern day used for selfies. Beside the photograph was a write-up on the photographer, more gloss than actual fact, and Tony noticed two years in parentheses next to the name: 1944 - 1968.

"Hmm… Didn't live very long, did she?"

Ella's face went a little soft at that. "Well, no one really knows for certain what happened to her, but it's presumed she died then."

"Is Tony coming?" Bruce asked Ella, and Tony frowned at Bruce and said, "Uh, I'm right _here_."

Bruce shot him a flat look. "You're not the only person in the world with that name."

"Yeah, well, to _you_ , I'm the only one that matters."

Ella smiled at the exchange but said, "Unfortunately, no. His brother and his fiancé are having an engagement party tonight, so..."

"Yeah, it's weird," Bruce said, "every time you try to introduce us, something always comes up."

Ella hummed in agreement and was about to say something more when the arrival of some other friends caught her attention, and she excused herself and left to greet them, promising she'd come back around in time. Tony and Bruce watched her leave before Bruce nudged him and motioned him over to another panel and said, "Come on. I want to go see if it's here."

"What?"

"My favorite photo of Jimi Hendrix. You know, she was young, but she really was talented. She had this great perception of light and shadow. It's really neat the things she was able to do, especially with her city shots — New York and London and places like that…"

He continued to ramble, and Tony turned and took one last look at the introductory panel, at the photograph of the gorgeous young woman with what she could only presume was her whole life ahead of her, her doe-like eyes startling from the liner she'd applied and framed with feathery lashes done up in coats of mascara, her mouth parted in what she probably perceived to be a combination of enigmatic and sultry. Tony stared at her, and she stared right back at him, and he almost found that he couldn't tear his eyes away.

" _Tony!_ "

He shook his head, breaking the gaze with the woman fifty-years-dead and turned to see Bruce waving him over. He left the odd connection with the dead woman and followed over to where Bruce was standing in front of a portrait of Jimi Hendrix, who, yeah, was awesome, Tony had to admit, but Tony didn't really care about the so-called 'artistry' in a black-and-white photograph.

"What's up, aubergine?"

Bruce just gave his chosen pet-name-of-the-moment an odd smile then glanced around and said, "Gee, I hope Steve didn't get lost or something."

Tony waved off his concern. "Steve doesn't get lost. And even if he did, he'd never admit it. He's just trying to find a parking space because parking is a bitch in SoHo and he couldn't parallel park if his life depended on it."

"It's really a pain anywhere in the city," Bruce said. "I guess Steve's right and we could have just walked."

"Hmm, yeah, I suppose— Hey, how do you even know these people?"

Bruce blinked. "Uh, who?"

Tony nodded in the direction of the gallery owner. "This Ella-chick. That _Other_ Tony that you seem so excited to meet—"

Bruce let out a nervous laugh. "Why are you so— I have other friends. You know even _Jim_ has other friends, too."

Tony faked a gasp. "Lies and slander! Rhodey has me, and that's really all that anyone needs."

Bruce looked like he was genuinely giving this some thought as he said, "Well, that might be true for Steve—"

"What's true for Steve?"

Tony turned, greeted with the sight of his returned paramour. "Finally. Where the hell did you park the car? Hoboken?"

"Oh, nice to see you, too," Steve said but still put a hand to his lower back and gave him a chaste kiss in greeting.

Tony kissed back but still had the temerity to say, "You were gone for, like, five minutes. You didn't just return from the war."

"Well, not this time," Steve said then nodded at the picture ahead of them and said, "Who's this?"

Bruce began a long-winded spiel on the life and career of one James Marshall Hendrix, and Tony tuned out and instead let his mind and his gaze wander. Most of the photographs in the vicinity were of dead or now-aged rock stars, which was interesting in theory, he supposed, but he had an internet connection. He knew how to use Google. He could look this shit up in no time and buy a fucking reproduction if he wanted it so badly.

Steve's hand was lax on his back, and so Tony pulled away and wandered around the gallery, the gazes of either friends or clients of the owner settling on him as he moved past, brows knitting together like they were trying to figure out where they'd seen him before. There was also a man with a camera wandering around as well, though Tony couldn't tell if he was paid or was just a friend of the gallery owner with an annoying hobby. He'd spotted Tony and poised his camera a couple times as though to take a picture of him but had thought the better of it at the last second, confusion etched over his face as he presumably tried to figure out just who exactly Tony was.

He ignored them, figuring that acknowledging their gazes would be the wrong move, and instead moved over to a panel entitled 'Love from London.' There was a write-up of the photographer's exploits in London during 1964 and a portrait of her looking younger and more innocent, the makeup less pronounced and her dark-blonde hair done up in a very neat bouffant with the bangs combed to one side and the flip at the ends resting just above her shoulders. The famous Tower Bridge was set in the background with the Thames taking up parts of the middle and foreground. He skimmed the write-up because he didn't have much else to do, finding that she'd acted as a 'correspondent' of sorts for various American magazines about the 'hip' scene going on in London at the height of the so-called 'British Invasion.' Evidently, her tagline had been 'Love from London,' and the cynic in him wondered if she was nothing more than a PR stunt thought up to exploit the American obsession with all-things-British during that brief time period. Probably, as the write-up seemed to indicate that her series of 'letters home' only lasted about a year.

He shook his head and moved away from that panel. Bruce was still talking to Steve about something, and there were other small groups gathered around other panels that he didn't want to bother at the moment, so he glanced around and looked for something else to kill his time.

On a far wall, removed from the presumed 'showpieces' of the event, there were a handful of what looked like personal photos the photographer had taken — well, if she was even the one taking them and this wasn't some overblown stunt by some cynical firm. He moved over to them, gazing upon the black and white matte prints that indicated more domestic or personal scenes.

He was struck first and foremost by a portrait of what appeared to be the photographer sitting on the wall that lined the sunken plaza of Rockefeller Center. Sitting to her left was another young woman that bore a familial resemblance to her, but with dark hair and features that suggested she probably took more after her other parent. Though the scene was New York, both girls looked like they had just stepped out of a store display window on Carnaby Street in 1967: bold-colored mini dresses; long hair; heavy-lidded eye makeup; one in knee-high boots while the other wore those loafer-type things with the low, chunky heels. Both girls were sitting slightly turned and cross-legged to show off long, lean legs, the hems of their dresses _several_ inappropriate inches above the knee. They were very good-looking women, and dressed and styled and posed as they were, they _knew_ they were good-looking women.

There was a series of pictures after that, one a stunning portrait of those two young women with the familial resemblance standing back-to-back in front of a solid white background, long hair perfectly coiffed for 1967, makeup done and giving the camera their most beguiling looks. Below that was a series of photographs that showed them in various stages of cracking up or making funny faces at the camera. The last photo was of them standing close to one another, grinning as they held a toothy-smiled toddler between them, cheeks pressed together, the little girl's dark hair pulled up in little pigtails. Tony stared at the photo a moment then turned to read the caption beside it.

_Jean Shrimpton was the popular modeling 'It' girl of the time, and Liv was really influenced by her style. She tried to get us to pose like we were Montclair's answer to Jean and Chrissie Shrimpton. Obviously, it didn't work out so well. We tried, but neither one of us could keep a straight face for very long. It didn't help matters that Maria [Edwards' daughter] was off to the side banging Pop's tools around (the garage was the only place she could get the shot set up the right way). Pop came in about half of the way through and started working on the Fairlane, grumbling that we'd taken all his light._

_When I think of O. L. Edwards, I don't think of London street scenes or the stage at Monterey Pop. I think of that afternoon — of hanging up a white sheet against a wall in a Mary Quant dress she'd snuck in through customs ("They_ can't _tax the clothes on my back!") and groaning to Pop that she'd be done with his drop light in a minute. I think of my sister, the most stubborn and determined woman I've ever known (and who was never above talking her way into or out of something on a technicality)._

It was signed simply, _Lynn,_ which Tony took to be the sister in the photo.

He stared at the shots a little longer, pushing his tinted sunglasses up to rest atop his head so that he could get a better look, before he moved onto another one that clearly had to have been taken during the winter going by the snow on the ground. The two sisters, dressed up in winter clothes and boots, were sitting on what looked like porch steps, a carefully trimmed line of Japanese yews on either side of them. The little girl was standing on a freshly-shoveled sidewalk and bundled up tight in a light-colored snowsuit, her body turned to look back at the women on the steps. In the background, standing beside what was probably a front door, was what looked like the lower half of an older man — presumably the 'Pop' mentioned elsewhere — wearing what looked like work pants of some kind and boots and a flannel coat. Without a face to go by, Tony could only presume age by what he could make out of the posture, which looked, well, like a man just on the other side of middle age.

He stared at it a moment more before he went back to the one taken at Rockefeller Center, and strangely or perhaps sadly enough, he must have been getting old because the only thing he could think when he looked at this photograph of these two attractive young women with their long legs and mini dresses was, " _Pull down your skirts!_ "

Oh, god. He was a parent already.

He looked down at his abdomen and said, "What have you done to me?"

Steve, evidently bored with Bruce's music history lesson, was at his elbow in an instant, concerned, ready to strike against whoever or whatever had offended him.

"What's wrong? What happened?"

"Nothing," he said with a despondent sigh and patted Steve's arm. "Just…" He motioned at the photo he'd been staring at. "The only thing I can think of when I look at that photo is how _goddamned short_ those skirts are."

"That's a _skirt?"_ Steve asked and peered closer. He stole a confused look back at Tony and said, "Are you sure they're not just… Maybe those are pants?"

Tony patted him on the back. "Those are stockings, babe, not leggings. Style of the times. Mini dresses were all the rage. Think I've even seen a picture of my mother wearing one. I mean clearly these ladies have the legs to pull it off and _know_ they have the legs to pull it off, but Jesus— I mean, didn't they have _parents_ that could, you know, lock the doors on them until they changed into something decent?"

Steve glanced back at Tony once again, a wry little smile on his face. "Why does it bother you so much? You don't know them, and this picture was taken almost fifty years ago."

"It's the principle of the thing, Steve!" He motioned at the photo again. "Those dresses don't leave much to the imagination. I mean, one of them loses her balance and goes tumbling off that wall, the mystery's gone!"

Steve could do nothing but laugh. "Tony, they're in their seventies by now!"

"Oh, the one sister, yes," Ella said, suddenly beside them as she motioned to the brunette in the photo. "She's the one that loaned the prints to us. The one that took the photographs—" she motioned to the fairer-haired sister, "—disappeared without a trace in 1968. No one seems to know what happened to her."

Steve, arms folded, merely sniffed and said a flat, "Or they're just not saying if they _do_ know."

Ella hummed in agreement then said, "Well, no one's come forward with any information on her." She motioned to the other panels and added, "As you can see, she was very popular with the music scene of the time. It's a shame what happened to her. Could you imagine the beautiful prints we would have had of Woodstock?"

Tony shrugged, but Steve turned his patented Stare of Disapproval on the gallery owner and said, "Yeah, _that's_ the tragedy in that story."

"The sister doesn't even know?" Bruce asked as he joined with them, and the woman shook her head.

"If she does know anything, she certainly gives a good impression of pretending not to. She had a little girl, Maria—" She motioned to a photo of the photographer that Tony hadn't bothered to look at, one of the photographer in that same mini dress sitting on the floor and playing with an infant. "She disappeared along with her."

"Oh, then problem solved," Bruce said. "It was the boyfriend, wasn't it?"

"I don't think she was actually seeing anyone at the time."

"Doesn't have to have been," Tony said breezily. "Could've been an ex or maybe a boyfriend no one knew about."

"Family?" Steve asked Ella, who motioned to the photograph.

"Well, her sister, Lynn."

"Parents?" Bruce asked. "Other siblings?"

"A father," she said with an exhaled breath. "He was a schoolteacher, I believe. Their mother died when they were very young. Other than that, I don't know. I'm not sure."

She shrugged like she didn't know and couldn't be bothered, and Tony nodded and gazed at the photograph a little more, squinting at it as he peered at the blonde, smiling sister with the oversized plastic sunglasses pushed over-top of her head. She looked familiar — they both looked familiar — in some way that he couldn't quite put his finger on. Perhaps he'd just seen this photograph somewhere before. In fact, he was sure he had. That must have been why they looked so familiar or seemed so familiar.

He stared at them a few more moments, trying to place where he'd come across this photograph before, staring at their faces as though they could give them the answers, and out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Ella, a funny look on her face as she glanced between the portrait on the wall and Tony, like she saw something there. Tony turned and was about to ask her what she was thinking of, but she shook her head as though to clear her mind of the thought and gave her attendees a broad smile.

"Anyway, Bruce, thank you so much for coming," she said, taking hold of his hands as though she was saying her 'goodbyes' to him. "I do hope you'll pass the good word along."

"They look fantastic, El," he said and nodded around at the various prints that lined the gallery. "I think you'll get a big turnout for this."

She grinned. "Oh, I think so, too. I don't want to say, but I already have a couple of _important_ confirmed attendees for the opening."

She wiggled her eyebrows at Bruce, and Bruce laughed and said, "Should I be insulted you invited me to the preview and not the opening?"

"I didn't say you couldn't come to the opening. I just know how you are in, well, _crowds_ nowadays."

Bruce smiled a little sadly and nodded, and Steve turned to Ella and said, "Thank you, Ms. Greenburg, for inviting us to the preview."

Ella laughed and clutched a hand at her chest. "Oh, my goodness," she said, blushing, "never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I'd get a 'thank you' from Captain America of all people!"

Steve shook his head a little. "Sorry," he said, "hate to disappoint, but that's coming from Steve Rogers."

"It still counts," she said and took hold of his hands before she went up on her toes and kissed his cheek. "Thank you so much for coming. It means the world to me to have Bruce and his friends here."

"Hey," Bruce said, "I would have brought along more if I thought they'd be interested."

"Nat might have been," Steve said, but Bruce hedged some and said, "Yeah, but I think she got roped into refereeing the push-up competition."

Steve and Tony just blinked at him in unison. At least, Tony figured it was in unison.

Bruce laughed some more, that nervous laugh that he had, and scratched the back of his head as he said, "There…was a bet of some kind."

Tony turned to Steve and said, "You know we're about three months away from finding them on the couch having really loud hate-sex with each other, right?"

Steve made a face. "Bucky's not into fellas."

"Maybe he just didn't meet the right one yet," Tony said with a shrug only to receive a very flat look from Steve. "I'm just saying. We started out by taking pot-shots at each other on a Helicarrier. Now look at us: old and married and set in our ways."

"Oh, god, he makes a good point," Bruce murmured, but Steve just continued to give Tony that flat look as he said, "Sam's not into fellas, either. Just because two fellas bicker with each other doesn't mean they secretly want to make love to each other."

"No, but it could mean they want to fuck."

" _Tony_."

"What? You're right. It might not necessarily lead to _making love_ , but it might lead to some crazy hate-sex."

Steve just sighed a little, and he shook his head and said, "It's not— They're not—"

"I'm not saying they're in love with each other. I'm just saying they want to fuck each other. There's a difference."

Steve went to say something to that, but Ella beat him to the punch by cutting him off and saying to Tony, "I'm sorry, I don't— Bruce and the captain keep referring to you as 'Tony,' but I thought your name was 'Natasha'?"

"Eh, it's not my _name_ , it's more my _identity_ — Well, it's something I'm trying out."

She gave him an odd look, and Bruce shook his head and pressed his face into his palm. He huffed. "Look, it's like I was telling you earlier. Space goddesses—"

"She's not a 'goddess,'" Steve muttered.

"Of course she's not. She's dead," Tony said then turned his attention back to Ella. "Anyway, long story short, crazy space lady finds me, like, six months ago, senses I'm 'bonded'—" he used finger quotes on the word, "—to this one here—" he jerked a thumb at Steve, "—and then says, 'You know what you two need? A kid.'" He motioned over himself. "Then, presto-change-o I'm like this so that _this one_ —" he again jerked his thumb at Steve, "—could knock me up because, evidently, to her, that's like the most magical thing that you could have happen to you if you're 'bonded.'"

"Do you _have_ to say 'knocked up'?" Steve muttered.

"How 'bout 'in a delicate condition'? Does that work for you?"

"Can't you just say 'pregnant'?"

"Evidently not."

Ella just tweaked a smile and raised her hand a little like she was trying to be polite about cutting into their back-and-forth, and once she realized she'd gotten their attentions, she tweaked another small smile at them and said, "I'm sorry, what do you mean— Are you trying to say—? I mean, I read a rumor about it _somewhere_ , but I just assumed it was a joke and I didn't really bother to pay attention to it after that, but is it— Are you trying to say— I mean—"

"Am I really Tony Stark?" he finished for her, knowing without even having to look that there were other interested parties paying particular attention to their conversation.

She blinked and stared at him, silent, almost like she was equal parts relieved that the question was out in the open and she was mortified that she had been the one to bring it up.

"Well, um, _yes_ ," she said after a moment. "Is that what you're trying to—?"

"Imply that I, an obviously pregnant woman, am really Tony Stark — _the_ Tony Stark? Iron Man. Avenger. Genius, billionaire, philanthropist?"

She blinked again and looked from Tony to Bruce to Steve and back again then said, "Well, _are_ you?"

"Implying it? No. I'm outright stating it."

"Seriously?" one of the other gallery-goers asked from where he stood with a group beside the 'Scenes from London' panel.

"Tony, we shouldn't do it this way," Steve murmured, but Tony ignored him and said, "Yeah," to the man's question.

"How?" a woman asked.

"Look," he said, suddenly finding all eyes in the gallery were now on him, the small crowd moving away from the various panels and moving to gather around them, "long story short, there's a certain occupational risk that comes from being an Avenger."

"You get turned into a woman?" the first man asked.

Tony thought about this then shrugged a little and said, "Well, _yeah_ , I guess. When you put it that way. Basically, I was going to say don't cross paths with screwy goddesses— Yes, I _know_ , Steve. You don't think she's a goddess," he said before Steve could even get the first word out.

Steve closed his mouth again.

"Anyway," he continued, "my point is there are certain risks that come from being an Avenger, and getting mixed up with screwballs from the cosmos that can literally transform your body is one of those risks."

He motioned over himself as though to prove his point.

"Oh, my god!" another woman gasped, slapping a hand to her mouth. "You mean you're having an alien's baby?"

" _What?_ No!" He nodded his head at Steve. "It's totally his."

Everyone's gaze shifted from Tony to Steve at that. Tony could only imagine the face Steve was making at them.

"How do you know?" someone asked, and Tony rolled his eyes.

"'Cause I know."

"But how can you be sure?"

"Because I know how and when exactly it happened, and there were only two of us in the room at the time, and she wasn't the other one."

"But why?" someone else asked.

"Why what?"

"Why would they do this to you?" yet another person asked.

He huffed a little and said, "Because Steve and I are 'soul mates.'" Again, he used finger quotes on the expression. "And as 'soul mates,' it is our job to 'be fruitful and multiply.' Can't do that in my other body without some help so—"

He motioned over himself again.

"I don't buy it," someone said and looked around the group for acknowledgement and support. He got a couple of shrugs and a couple of nods in return.

"It's not for you to _buy_ , all right?" Tony said. "It's the truth. Does it sound crazy? I don't know. Any crazier than aliens swarming out of a hole in the sky?"

"Oh, god!" someone said. "You're not having one of _those_ are you?"

"What? _No!_ It's human. It's totally one-hundred-percent human." He looked at Bruce. "Right?"

Bruce had shrunk away from the crowd some, standing closer to behind Tony and Steve than right out at the front with them. "Uh, as far as I can see," he said, and Tony turned back to the crowd to gauge whether or not that had sufficed. When he figured that it hadn't quite done the job, he sighed a little and rolled his eyes.

"Look, it's nothing— It's not that freaky, all right?"

"You sure about that?" one of the audience members asked. "Seems kind of freaky to me. I mean — if you are telling the truth here — you go from being a man to a pregnant woman. I know if it were me, I'd be freaked to hell."

"Look, I wasn't _pregnant_ — She didn't turn me pregnant, all right? She turned me into a woman." He glanced at Steve then added to the crowd, "We _may_ not have used protection like we should have— But in our defense, it's not like we ever had a need for it before all this, which is probably too much information for some of you, but whatever."

The assembled group went silent at that — either contemplating or looking for an excuse to run or trying to make sure their phones were recording everything, he couldn't tell — before one brave soul towards the back said, "So…are you like that forever now?"

He and Steve exchanged glances, Steve's look sad but supportive, before Tony turned back to them and said, "Well, seeing as the nutcase that did this to me is dead, and seeing as how — according to Thor — she's the only one that can turn me back." He exhaled a heavy and somewhat resigned breath. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"Well, that's convenient," someone muttered from the group. It earned him the Stare of Disapproval, but he didn't shrink away from it. If anything, it seemed to embolden him.

"You expect us to believe that Tony Stark somehow got turned into a woman, that she and Captain America had sex and neither one of them thought to use a condom, and that now you're magically pregnant and stuck as a woman for the rest of your life when everyone knows that Tony Stark — the _real_ Tony Stark — is on life support after he tried to kill himself because Captain America was cheating on him with Jabba the Slut."

Steve tensed beside him, and Tony grasped hold of his arm and said, "Steve, _don't_." He turned his attention to the detractor and said, "First of all, I am pregnant — I am quite noticeably pregnant — so _fuck you_ , and I hope to god your significant other has never exceeded the BMI for 'underweight' because I can only imagine you would spend every day of their life reminding them of that. And second, yeah, I _do_ expect you to believe it. You want to know why? Because it's the truth. Because I did get turned into a woman. Because Steve and I _were_ too stupid to even think of fucking _pulling out_ in time, which…doesn't say a lot for us, but again, not something we've ever had to worry about. New experience. New sensations and all that jazz.

"Look, I know it sounds crazy, but come on, you people have lived through the last several years. Is this really any stranger than _anything_ you've seen since, I don't know, a giant, green rage monster trashed Harlem? Sorry, Bruce."

Bruce just shrugged like there wasn't anything to do or say about it.

"Gods, aliens, monsters, war heroes frozen in time — really, with all that, with everything that has happened in the last several years, is this _really_ all that unbelievable?"

The room went silent, the only noise being the HVAC system and the New Age-y music attempting to create a soothing ambiance for the show. Finally, after it seemed the silence had gone on for too long, a woman said, "So…why did you keep it? Why didn't you make her turn you back?"

Again, Steve tensed up beside him, but he just squeezed his arm and said, "OK, that's…really kind of personal and none of your business. I mean, really, that's mine and Steve's choice and not anyone else's. I mean, as it turns out, we really _didn't_ have a choice, but—"

"What do you mean you didn't have a _choice?_ " the same woman asked, sounding annoyed by the very thought of it.

Tony scratched the back of his head, his fingertips hitting the mass of bobby pins that were keeping his dark hair up in the French twist Natasha had done for him. "Because, honestly, we — _I_ — didn't have a choice. There's— There's some fine print with this whole thing. Basically, I _have_ to keep it — I have to see this through 'til the end — if I want to live."

Again, the room went silent at that, and Bruce leaned in close and murmured ever-so-softly to him, " _Maybe_ you shouldn't have said _that_."

Yeah, maybe, but too late. It was out there. Now, any goon wanted to get rid of him, they knew all they had to do was induce a miscarriage — or maybe a stillbirth at this point. Granted, it would probably just be easier to shoot him in the head or something, but whatever—

And besides, carrying the baby of Captain America? He was worth a hell of a lot more alive.

"So…you're _forced_ to keep this baby?" the same woman asked, disgust written over her face. "You didn't have a choice in it?"

"It's part of the whole spell…thing," Tony said breezily, trying for nonchalance and hoping he succeeded. "Done as a protection of some sort. I guess. I don't know."

"That…sounds horrible," the same woman said, visibly shivering as she seemingly pondered the mere thought of it.

"Look, it's not— It's not _exactly_ as awful as having a hole carved into your chest in a cave in Afghanistan. I mean, _completely_ different experiences, but on the scale of horribleness? This one? Not nearly as bad as that one."

"So, why the fake name?" Ella was the one to ask that, and Steve, surprisingly, was the one that chimed in with a response.

"Because," he said, the voice conveying pure authority as he stood there with his arms folded, "we were trying to keep this quiet so Tony could go through this without the media shining a spotlight on him." He shrugged a little and added, "Doesn't really matter now. Tony's not going back to being as he was — not by her, anyway — so the sooner we get all this out in the open, the better."

"Yeah," the same detractor from before said, "I still don't buy it."

"You don't have to _buy_ it," Steve said, his jaw tensing the way it did when he was annoyed at something or someone. "It's not a tall tale or a myth. It's something that's actually happened to us — something we have to live with, and something we have to deal with. You can think we're lying all you want. Doesn't matter to me. We can't make you believe it. We can only state what we know to be the absolute truth. Whether you choose to believe it or not is up to you."

Again, the gathered crowd went silent, and after a few moments of uncomfortable tension, the man that was either a friend or hired as a photographer for the event held his camera up some.

"Hey, uh, you mind if I took a picture?"

Tony nodded his acquiescence. "So long as you promise to post it to every gossip blog within the hour."

" _Tony_."

"Hmm?" he asked then slid his arms around Steve's waist and hugged him, pressing as close to him as he could. "Put your arms around me. Make it look like we're actually in love."

"You know, you're gonna get quoted on that," Steve said but did as Tony had suggested, and Tony looked at the man with the camera.

"Don't quote me on that. Believe it or not, we are actually madly, crazily, insanely in love."

"Really sound like you believe it there, too," Steve muttered, evidently unimpressed with Tony's rather matter-of-fact tone of voice.

He huffed a breath, and as the photographer set up his shot, Tony went up on his toes and pressed a kiss to Steve's cheek. And then, because he was an ass, he nudged one of Steve's arms free from his embrace, and he grabbed Steve's hand and slapped it over his belly just as the man took the shot.

"There," Tony said and pulled back, proud at his accomplishment. "Let's see how long it takes _that_ to start trending."

~*~

As it turned out, about two hours.

Unfortunately, it was mostly under the hashtag 'JabbatheSlut.'

Tony couldn't tell if Steve was joking or not when he very seriously asked if it was possible to buy the internet.


	23. Chapter 23

* * *

God love him, Steve tried to make things better.

Knowing the only way to fight fire was with more fire, Steve got into the digital age, attempting to combat #JabbatheSlut with the more regal-sounding #LadyLiberty. Which was…sweet, but kind of lame-sounding, no matter how proud of it Steve was or even if some people had actually taken the bait — and not just the other Avengers under assumed handles and avatars reblogging and retweeting positive things about Captain America's very pregnant paramour. Though they did. A lot. Maybe they had more fun with it than they should have?

Even Barnes got into it, even if most of his posts seemed to be vaguely insulting allusions to Wilson and what he kept insisting was his love of all things avian. Mixed in with positive posts dutifully tagged #LadyLiberty were photoshops of Wilson and his bird friends in the park, Wilson in a bird costume, Wilson hanging out with Big Bird (with hashtag #BFFs), and Wilson flying in the air and leading a flock of geese.

Wilson took it in stride — or as much as he could. They were keeping the whole Winter-Soldier- gone-on-the-straight-and-narrow thing quiet while Tony had Pepper have the lawyers work out the details absolving James Buchanan Barnes of the crimes committed while under the thumb of Hydra — even if Barnes himself wasn't fully comfortable with it because, in his words, "I still did it."

(Which was not something Steve would even tolerate hearing, much to Barnes' frustration. Tony had a sneaking suspicion Steve was happily living in denial about things that had happened in the course of the past seventy years, and he suspected even more that Barnes was growing more and more annoyed with this but was reluctant to say anything.)

So, Wilson was taking it in stride as best he could, but Tony knew that was only because he was building up an arsenal to unleash in the event that Barnes ever became an active and known member of the Avengers. And Tony knew Wilson would do whatever it took to get Barnes to that point — even if only so he could use some lame-as-fuck 'Six Million Dollar Man' manip once in a tweet no one under forty would even understand.

Barton, ever the asshole, did what he could to get #LadyLiberty trending, but he also tagged under #beautygraceMissUnitedStates, which clearly went over the heads of anyone not well-versed in Sandra Bullock movies. He thought it was hysterical. He was the only one. Bruce totally didn't chuckle at it, and Natasha didn't smile at it, and Wilson _definitely_ did not say, "That's actually a good one."

And Rhodey, that traitor, totally did not call only to ask, "Wait, which tag am I supposed to use? 'Lady Liberty' or 'Miss United States'?"

Barton almost earned himself demerits for that, Steve being none too pleased with the tag and assuming Barton's was teasing him about the #LadyLiberty thing. Which it totally was, Tony was pretty sure, because it was so fucking _earnest_ it was embarrassing.

But it somehow was catching on.

It turned out some people _liked_ that Cap had taken up with this mystery brunette. Unfortunately, most of them were just relieved that Steve had dropped the devil incarnate that was Tony Stark. Some of them weren't happy with Steve taking up with Tony _or_ 'Natasha,' though Tony got the feeling those were mostly people that fantasized about somehow hooking up with Steve themselves. And then there was a very small but loyal band of supporters there were absolutely crushed that their #Superhusbands were no more. Which, honestly, was kind of a weird tag, especially considering that, according to Natasha, it clearly predated his and Steve's marriage back in April…that no one outside of them, the city clerk, and a small band of deputy clerks even knew about.

So, though #LadyLiberty nobly did what it could, #JabbatheSlut was just too powerful to be completely stopped. It was all over social media, it made it into late night hosts' monologues, and though Steve was incensed by the tag's existence and its implications, the way Tony saw it, if he was Jabba the Hut, then Steve was Princess Leia, which meant—

"—clearly you should be chained up and wearing nothing but a pair of gold lamé hot pants."

Steve offered nothing but an unimpressed glare as he looked up from his tablet while they sat around the penthouse living room about a week after the gallery event, but it was Barton that said, "Anyone have a bottle of brain bleach?"

"Dude, not enough brain bleach in the world to get rid of that image," Wilson replied, looking at Steve like his mere existence was now somehow offensive to him.

"What the hell is brain bleach?" Barnes asked.

"A special kind of bleach you pour in your ears to clear disgusting images out of your mind," Wilson said in complete seriousness. "Wanna try it? I'll go get some."

He made like he was going to get up, and Barnes just looked at him like he couldn't honestly tell if he was joking or not, but Barton said, "You really want him to murder you in your sleep, don't you?"

Wilson snorted a laugh and relaxed back in his chair. "He wouldn't be able to."

"Are we placing money on that?" Barnes said before he turned to Steve and said, "And back to what your little princess said—"

"Really? That's catching on?" Tony muttered, drumming his fingers on his abdomen and getting what felt like a foot shoved back at him for his efforts.

"—you really into that sort of thing, Stevie?" Barnes asked and made a face at Steve like he wasn't sure what to think of him any longer.

"Nah," Barton said before Steve could say anything. "If either of them is in restraints and skimpy clothing, it's the princess. I mean being _in_ restraints and skimpy clothing. Cap's all for seeing his princess half-naked and tied to the bed."

"Dude!" Wilson cried.

Steve just shrugged at this, and Tony said, "Well, he's not wrong."

The room went oddly silent at that, and Barton stared at them a moment before he said, "Oh, fuck it. I'm joining the Justice League."

"Open membership drive?" Wilson asked. "'Cause I'll totally defect, too."

Barnes frowned at them. "Wait, what's the 'Justice League'?" he asked.

"Batman and Superman and Wonder Woman and a bunch of other people in a group _kind of_ like the Avengers, but not as cool," Wilson explained.

Barnes just stared at him. "Aren't Batman and Superman comic book characters?"

"Yeah, but then they, like, formed a team to…go around and solve mysteries and stuff."

Barton rolled his eyes. "In what? A blue van called 'The Mystery Machine'?"

Both Steve and Bucky just blinked and looked at him, and he sighed a little and looked between Wilson and Tony and said, "Oh, well, there's a shock. The relics have never heard of Scooby-Doo."

"The hell's a 'Scooby-Doo'?" Barnes asked, and Steve looked at him and shrugged like he didn't know what they were talking about, either.

Tony, however, decided to get back to the original topic at hand and said, "You losers aren't going anywhere. Besides, asshole, you're the one that even brought it up, so don't whine about defecting to the imaginary Justice League of Justice because you're jealous that Steve and I actually have a very fulfilling sex life with each other and you're stuck — and I'll throw one to the old men here — spending time with Rosie Palm and her sisters."

"Best kind of lovin' is self-lovin'," Barton said with an easy shrug.

"Yeah, the only people that say that are the ones that can't get anything but self-lovin'," Tony said.

"Don't pretend you're above us," Barton said. "You've had a bottle of lotion and a box of tissues next to your bed just like the rest of us."

Barnes motioned at Steve and said, "He's too far away. Someone cover his ears for me. I don't want him hearing this stuff 'til he's older."

Steve just glanced up from his tablet again and gave Bucky a _look_ but didn't say anything until his gaze was back on his tablet again.

"I'm not a kid anymore, Buck," he said, and Tony glanced over and saw he was checking trending topics on social media, no doubt hoping to see #JabbatheSlut dying a much-deserved death.

"No, you're not," Bucky said, seeming to agree. "You went and got all…respectable."

"There is nothing respectable about what they do behind closed doors," Wilson said.

"Seriously," Tony said and looked around at the other three. "Why do you people spend so much time here?"

"Well, it's such a welcoming atmosphere," Barton said. "It's like a birthday party you never want to leave!"

Steve's sharp gaze went over to Barton at that for some reason, and Barton put his hands up in what looked like apology and sat back.

Strange.

"Whatever," Tony said, realizing once again that he had to pee. "Ugh," he muttered and struggled to get up from where he sat on the couch, grumbling to himself and flailing pathetically as he did so.

"Want some help?" Steve offered and glanced over at him.

"No," he said, gritting his teeth as he attempted to find the purchase to allow him the right leverage to push himself upright. "I have to do this myself."

"I can help you up. It's not a—"

" _Steve!_ " He slapped his hands away as Steve went to help him. "I can do this myself!"

"God," Barton said, smiling as he watched. "It's like a turtle on its back."

"Hey, man, that's not cool," Wilson said just as Tony finally succeeded in getting himself up. He righted himself, straightening his clothes and yanking on the bra that was riding up his back some and turned his attention Barton.

"You better hope nothing like this ever happens to you because I will not be nearly as kind," he said and then ~~waddled~~ stormed past to make his way to the stairs. "Why the fuck is there not a bathroom on this floor?" he muttered and sucked in a deep breath before he steeled himself to make the climb up to the second floor of the penthouse.

"Don't ask me!" Barton called out to him. "I didn't design it! Though I agree, it would be more convenient to have a bathroom on this floor, too."

"Not your fucking apartment, Barton!" Tony called back to him. "You go down to your floor, I'm sure you'll find it's all on the same level."

"Yeah, but I go back down to my floor, I won't get to enjoy the pleasure of your company!"

"Whatever," Tony muttered, unable to think of a comeback quickly enough.

He got to the top of the stairs and headed over toward the bedroom, and he was just about to step inside to use the adjoining bathroom when something compelled him to glance to the side, and his gaze caught upon the door of the room next door.

Figuring his bladder would hold out for the time being, he went over and put his hand to the doorknob, and he stood there a moment, flashes of a memory coming back to him — a feisty little spitfire indignant that her room was gone. He took a breath and pushed in, finding himself greeted with nothing but shadows and empty space. Once upon a time, Pepper had plans on using it for an office. Then Tony half-considered converting it to an office until he realized he was better served using his workshop for that. As of late, there had been talk of Steve using it as a studio — he wanted to get back to sketching and maybe even a little painting — but he wasn't entirely satisfied with the light for it. His old bedroom downstairs, he'd said, had better light, and he was still trying to convince himself that having that space for himself wouldn't be a waste of money, time, or resources.

Christ, you could take the man out of the Depression…

He switched on the recessed lighting, the lights in the ceiling shining down on bare white walls and industrial-grade carpeting. They could use it for a nursery, he supposed. Paint it blue, stick some furniture in there, maybe add a couple stuffed animals, a couple of cutesy pictures on the walls. He really never thought it would ever be used for such a purpose.

OK maybe once a long time ago…

But other than that, he'd never thought it would be used for such a purpose. Seeing as Steve hadn't wanted it for his studio, he'd been thinking about knocking down the wall and opening up the bedroom — maybe get a living room set in there and have themselves a nice suite to escape to while the moochers had their video game competitions downstairs. He supposed that was still an option, but it made more sense now to use it for a nursery.

A nursery. Good god, the boozy playboy he'd once been would never believe it. Or, if he did, he'd be trying to figure out how much it would cost to make the whole thing go away. Because that man could never, in his wildest dreams, have imagined he'd be the one knocked up—

—and by his childhood hero, no less. The hero he'd grown to hate as he got older and realized he was competing for his father's affections with a ghost. The hero that was nothing compared to the amazing and stubborn pain-in-the-ass behind the mask.

He rubbed his belly, hoping to soothe the rambunctious kraken that was busy doing his daily calisthenics, and he smiled a little and wished Howard had been able to see this. Just once. Just for one day see what his 'greatest creation' had done to his 'greatest disappointment.' He supposed looking like this it lost some of its punch, but then, looking like this had to count for something, right?

_Jesus Christ, Tony! How in the hell'd you get yourself turned into a woman? You'd better hope you're not stuck that way the rest of your life!_

Yeah, it probably counted for a little something.

He dropped his hand from his belly and switched the light off again. They had time, he figured as he closed up the door and went back over to his bedroom. Not like the little monster was making his appearance tomorrow.

Goddamn it, that still hurt. _His_. _His_ appearance. Well, he was going to have to get used to it. He wasn't about to make a 'Howard' of himself. His kid would know he was loved and wanted. His kid wouldn't be wracked with guilt for damn near decades because he'd never said 'goodbye.' His kid was going to be so loved and wanted he'd be smothered by affection, which…yeah, OK, maybe wasn't the best option either. But the point was his kid would be loved and know he was loved, and that's what mattered.

Even if a horrible part of him would always wish for something else.

~*~

It was coming up on the end of May, which meant the annual Foundation gala was only a couple weeks away, but more importantly, it was coming up on an even more momentous occasion — even if, unbeknownst to the public, Natasha Carbonell was scheduled to make her first 'official' appearance at that event.

It was coming up on Tony's birthday.

To be perfectly honest, Tony would be lying if he said he didn't want to celebrate his birthday. He was accustomed to, in years past, throwing himself a big, ol' bash and inviting hundreds of people he barely knew or cared about just to have a loud, raucous, alcohol-soaked time. He'd enjoyed them for what they were worth, though the last time he'd done anything like that was the year he was dying of palladium poisoning. Getting shitfaced and fighting with Rhodey had kind of taken the bloom off of that rose, and since then, things had been a bit more low-key. His birthday back when he and Pepper were still dating had been spent on a romantic weekend getaway. After they broke up, it was spent in his lab. With Steve, it was a romantic dinner and then a hot, sweaty workout between the sheets.

This year, he wanted something kind of different. He wanted a party — but not like the parties of yesteryear. He wanted one with just his friends and his family, maybe something nice and simple like what they'd done for him and Steve when they'd gotten married.

The thing was, he didn't want to beg for one, either. That was just tacky. And so he hinted — at Steve, at Bruce, at Natasha, at asshole Barton, and hell, even at Thor — that he wouldn't be averse to a little soiree thrown in his honor if anyone was up to it. Unfortunately, he picked the wrong time to hint to each of them. Steve he brought it up to when Steve was down in the gym breaking one of the heavy bags, no doubt still annoyed by the continued internet presence of #JabbatheSlut. A disinterested 'uh huh' was about the most he got out of him. Bruce he bothered while he was working on something in his lab. At least Bruce was a little more forward, telling him with tired and frustrated eyes, "Tony, I'm trying to work on something here. Could you come back later?"

Tony just clamped his mouth shut and nodded, shuffling his way out of Bruce's lab with his tail between his legs.

Natasha he tried to talk to while she was getting dressed for something, her hair pulled up into a ponytail and a black leotard hugging her frame. She slipped some things into a bag and said, "Tony, if you need something, I'm not the right person to ask. Steve makes the decisions for the team. If you need me to talk to him about something—"

But he just shook his head and murmured that he was fine and, no, forget about it. Evidently, he'd been a little _too_ vague about what he was trying to ask.

Barton just glared at him, annoyed because Tony had disturbed him during one of those stupid reality shows about pet detectives or something like that, and said, "Why the fuck are you whining to me about this shit? Isn't it Cap's job by law now to listen to every petulant thing you say?"

Thor just blinked at him then started talking about some seasonal Asgardian festivity where a most splendid occasion was always had by all.

Rhodey was out of town, dispatched somewhere by the government that still, for some reason, owned his soul, and Wilson was too busy trying to ~~torment Barnes~~ help acclimate Barnes back into the real world through…pretty nasty Wii bowling competitions, it looked like, so after sequestering himself in his lab, and with his machines and his stupid 'bots there to give him comfort, he called up Pepper, and the moment she picked up the phone, he said, "I think I've officially worn out my welcome with everyone."

" _What? What are you talking about?_ " she asked. " _Oh, and 'hello' to you, too, Tony._ "

"You knew it was me. What's the point of taking up time with 'hello'?"

" _We've just taken up more time with that than if you'd said 'Hi, Pepper,' back in the beginning._ "

"Whatever," he muttered and sat back in his chair, twirling a stylus between his admittedly nimble fingers. Honestly, the phalangeal dexterity of this body was fantastic and probably the one thing that might make this whole not-turning-back thing not as inherently awful as it could be. "I think I've finally done it."

" _Done what?_ "

"I told you. Wore out my welcome with everyone."

Pepper sighed on the other end of the line, and Tony was certain she was pinching the bridge of her nose. He could have picture-chatted her, he supposed, but it was easier to make faces and roll his eyes and do other stuff when he didn't have someone watching his every move.

" _Why do you think you wore out your welcome with everyone?_ "

"Because none of them have any time for me. Because I even tried to talk to my _husband_ , and he was more interested in punching a bag than he was having a serious adult discussion with me."

Pepper sighed again. " _Tony, I don't think you wore out your—_ "

"Bruce actually chased me out of his lab. Birdbrain told me to stop whining at him. What else am I supposed to think?"

" _I don't know. Maybe you just caught them at a bad time?_ "

" _All_ of them?"

Pepper sighed once more and said, " _Tony, is there a reason you called other than to whine at me because your friends aren't paying attention to you?_ "

Tony winced and pulled the phone away from his ear to look at it. The screen turned back on, and Pepper's smiling face stared back at him, a static photograph of a happier time, evidently, and he frowned and tucked the phone back against his ear. "Sorry," he murmured. "I just thought—"

" _Look, Tony, I don't have time right now. I'm sure it's nothing. I'm sure you just caught everyone at a bad time. You're not used to having so much free time on your hands. You don't know what to do with yourself, and you're being a little over-sensitive because of your condition. Just… Just play with your toys for a little while and I'm sure everything will be fine, all right?_ "

Jesus, even _Pepper…?_

"Yeah, all right," he murmured and swallowed. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—"

" _It's fine, Tony. It's just— I'll talk to you later, OK? When I have more time._ "

"Yeah," he said and then said his 'goodbyes' before he ended the conversation, pressing the little red button on the screen and watching as Pepper's smiling face blinked away.

He dropped his phone onto the worktable, and he cleared his throat and turned to his computer and said a somewhat emotion-filled, "Uh, J? What were we working on again?"

" _I believe you were working on some specs you had promised to provide to Miss Potts several weeks before regarding the—_ "

He waved his hand in the air. "Got it, J. I remember. Stuff for SI."

So, once his birthday finally rolled around a few days later he wasn't exactly surprised that the most he got from anyone — including Steve — was a cursory 'Happy Birthday' said without much thought. Granted, in the time the Avengers had been together, they'd never made much noise about birthdays or holidays period, but Tony was in a funny mood this year, and he wanted…

Maybe he just wanted to know he was still loved or appreciated or something stupid like that. Maybe #JabbatheSlut hurt a little more than he wanted to admit to even himself. Maybe he _was_ just ridiculously hormonal. He didn't really know, but what he did know was that he just… He just wanted his friends to care that it was his birthday, that's all.

Evidently they didn't, and evidently even _Steve_ didn't as the day passed without note, and when they climbed into bed that night, Steve was just about to turn out the light when he said, "Oh, _shit!_ It was your birthday today, wasn't it?"

Tony's heart sank into his stomach, but he refused to let it show on his face, and so he simply shrugged and said, "No big deal. It's only a birthday."

Steve nodded like that was what he'd figured. "Yeah, we've never made a big deal about it before, right?"

"Nope," Tony said with a curt shake of the head and turned onto his side. "'Night."

"Goodnight, honey," Steve said and leaned over him to kiss his cheek. Tony made a lazy kissing motion in his direction and then snuggled down, and the bed dipped and moved behind him some as Steve leaned back over onto his side and shut the light off then bedded down for the night.

The next morning, Steve was up and gone by the time he woke up, and he frowned at Steve's cold, empty, but rumpled side of the bed and muttered, "I didn't think the honeymoon was supposed to be over _that_ soon," and pulled himself out of bed.

He yawned and rubbed his belly and did his business in the bathroom then went down to the kitchen to get some coffee, finding to his everlasting annoyance that _someone_ had misplaced the coffeemaker. He grumbled and began a search for the contraption, going through cabinets and searching though high shelves that Steve liked to tease him about not being able to reach without the aid of a chair or a stepladder.

_Five inches_. Steve was _five inches_ taller than he was. He wasn't a fucking giant like Thor or the Hulk.

He couldn't find it, and he whined and yanked open the cabinets and pulled out the bag of free-trade coffee beans.

Wait a second.

He was Tony Stark. OK, Stark- _Rogers_ now, but still. He was Tony Stark. He was a certified fucking genius. He'd built a fucking suit of armor in a fucking _cave_ out of a box of goddamned scraps. Surely he was smart enough to figure out a way to brew a goddamned cup of coffee without a fucking maker. All he had to do was fashion something to hold the filter with the ground coffee in it then run through a pot of boiling water and presto! Liquid savoir!

He yanked open the cabinet again to grab the filters. He reached in to where they usually were, his hand coming up empty. Fuck. No filters. OK, whatever. Maybe there was some cheesecloth around he could use.

But he needed a grinder, too, for the beans, and so he went over to the space on the counter where that was usually kept.

No grinder.

He flexed his fingers around the bag of coffee beans he held in his hand, and he sniffled and wiped at some tears that had collected at the corners of his eyes, and as he scanned the counter for _something_ he could use to grind up the beans, JARVIS said, " _Sir, my readings indicate that you are beginning to show signs of distress, and Captain Rogers has asked me to inform him if you ever appear to show signs of being in such a state. Shall I inform him of your condition?_ "

"What?" he asked and yanked a metal meat tenderizer out of an array of utensils. That would work, right? "Steve asked you to do _what?_ "

" _Captain Rogers is quite concerned with your health and welfare and has asked me to relay information to him at any such time that I feel you to be in any way distressed. I sense that your lack of options regarding the ritual making of your morning coffee is causing you a great deal of distress, and I wish to know if I should inform the Captain of this_."

He pulled out a cutting board, and he lay it down on the counter and then opened the bag of beans. "Steve's worried about me?" he asked as he poured some beans onto the board.

" _The Captain is always concerned with your health and welfare. I have noticed this to be the case since I first made acquaintance with him in the spring of two thousand and twelve. However, the initial concern I detected was for that of a comrade and friend. The Captain's current level of concern is…troubling."_

Tony frowned. "Yeah huh," he said and, using the pointier side of the tenderizer, slammed the tool against the board, scattering coffee beans all over the counter. " _Fuck!_ " he yelled as they all pinged off various surfaces, and he stared at the board with the few remaining beans — untouched by the tenderizer, of course — and said, "OK, we're going to blame this on me being pregnant and not in my right mind."

" _Of course, Sir_."

He sighed and looked at his mess, and he thought about cleaning it up but decided against it because he just couldn't be bothered, and he dumped the used cutting board and tenderizer into the sink and set the bag back in the cupboard and said, "Wait, why is it _troubling?_ Is there something I should know? Is he planning something? Oh, god, he really _is_ going to run off to 'find himself,' isn't he?"

" _I have no reason to believe the Captain is looking to run off on you. I simply mean that I share Agent Romanoff's concerns regarding the Captain_."

He grumbled to himself and glared at the disappointments in the sink then went over to the fridge, stepping on a fucking coffee bean in the process. " _Traitor!_ " he yelled at it then yanked the fridge door open. "What concerns, J? What are we talking about? What's going on that I don't know?"

" _I believe you_ do _know, actually. Agent Romanoff has already brought them to your attention._ "

Tony's hand stilled just before the container of orange juice. He was actually kind of craving it, but he didn't know when it was purchased, and there was every reason to believe his darling husband had already backwashed into it, the freak.

And yes, swallowing his come was _totally_ different.

He hummed a little and stared at the container, but then he noticed a bottle of Hershey's syrup on the door, and he grabbed that and the milk and closed the door.

"Are we talking about this idea that she thinks Steve might be a little too dependent on me?" he asked and grabbed a glass from the cupboard.

" _I believe I might use similar words to describe it, yes_."

"Well, I think you're both crazy," he said and grabbed a spoon out of the flatware drawer, "but I can't stop you from thinking that."

He went over to the counter and set the glass down. He filled it with milk then squirted a generous helping of syrup into the glass. He stuck the spoon in and began to mix it up, picking up the glass and checking the bottom to make sure he was getting everything.

" _I am sorry, Sir, but I must agree with Agent Romanoff. I do believe the Captain may not…_ "

Tony continued to stir the chocolate milk mixture. "May not _what_ , J?"

" _Well, it does concern me that, were anything ever to happen to you, the Captain may not…take it as well as he could. Considering the circumstances, Captain Rogers has acclimated to the new millennium quite well with very few complications. However, I do feel it must be said that much of that acclimation was possible because of your influence, and I do not believe that influence is lost on the Captain. To some degree, I do believe that you are what is most keeping Captain Rogers tethered to the twenty-first century, and were he ever to lose that—_ "

Tony sighed and pulled the spoon out of the glass. He stuck the spoon in his mouth to get the few drops that had collected there then said, "You know, I'm really not sure how to take that, to be honest. I mean, I love Steve, and you know how much I love Steve, and not that I'm actively _looking_ for ways to die, but, I mean, I'm starting to feel a little bit of pressure here from people telling me, 'Hey, Tony, don't die unless you want Cap to go postal.'"

" _Given what I understand of that expression, I do not believe that is the main concern_."

Tony went to pick the glass up to take a sip, but he blinked and looked up at the ceiling at the last second. "Wait. Are you saying what I think you're saying?"

" _I'm not sure what you believe me to be saying_."

"That if I died, Steve might kill himself?"

JARVIS was oddly silent for a moment before he said, " _I do believe that is the concern shared between Agent Romanoff and the other Avengers_."

He sat there staring at the ceiling a moment, trying to process what JARVIS had just told him before he said, "Has anyone, I don't know, tried to talk to Steve about this?"

" _I do believe the Falcon was—_ "

"Wait, hold on! The _Falcon?_ Uh, since when are you calling him that?"

" _Sam Wilson requested that I refer to him as such—_ "

Tony burst out laughing. "Jesus," he muttered and shook his head. "OK, sorry, anyway, continue."

" _As I was saying, I do believe the Falc— Sam Wilson has attempted to converse with the Captain on this very subject. Captain Rogers was adamant that he was not in such a state of mind._ "

He picked up his glass. "What does Barnes think about it? I mean, he claims to remember some of what happened before the whole, uh…Soviet Assassin Era."

_You know, back when he killed my parents_ remained unsaid.

As Tony took the first sip of…very chocolaty milk — OK, maybe he went a little overboard on the syrup — JARVIS said, " _Sergeant Barnes did not believe that to be in the character of the Captain Rogers that he claims to remember_."

Tony pulled the glass away from his lips. "I'm sensing a ' _but'_ here, JARVIS."

" _However—_ "

"Sass-bot."

"— _the Sergeant also cautioned that the Captain Rogers that we are familiar with is not quite the same Captain Rogers that the Sergeant claims to remember from prior to the war and that it is possible that the extent of Captain Rogers's rather jarring experience of being a man out of time may have left him somewhat changed._ "

"Yeah, I'm sure the former Soviet assassin said it that poetically. Anyway, _meaning?_ "

" _That it is possible that the Captain could succumb to such a state of mind. They do believe it is most likely that the Captain would endeavor to fall in the line of duty rather than be proactive about it_."

Tony sighed and put the glass back to his lips again. "OK, got it. Don't die unless Steve goes first. You know, that is a _huge_ fucking weight to put on my shoulders, especially considering that if anything happens to this petulant little sea monster I'm growing inside of me I'm shit-out-of-luck."

He took another gulp as JARVIS said, " _My recent scans have shown the fetus to be in excellent health and development precisely on-target for this point of the gestation_."

"Good to know, I guess," he said between gulps of milk.

He chugged the remainder down, tilting his head back to get every last chocolaty drop, and he set the glass down and belched then wiped his mouth off with the back of his hand and said, "Going to work on some more of those specs for Pep. Not that anyone cares where I am, but if anyone asks for some reason, that's where I am, and I do not want to be disturbed. _Comprende_?"

" _I shall relay the message to the others_."

"Nice to have someone have my back."

He went down to his lab and began to putter with things for SI and things for the Avengers (who evidently couldn't be bothered with him, but whatever, he'd be the bigger person here), chowing down on a turkey sandwich that had appeared at some point but not bothering to ask where it even came from. He took a nap on the couch after that, waking up to a blanket tucked around him that hadn't been there when he'd fallen asleep, and he got up and puttered around some more before he stretched and cracked his back and rubbed his belly and sniffed himself, realizing then he was a bit ripe.

He must have been pretty bad if even he could smell it.

So, he went upstairs to get showered, luxuriating in the warm spray of water that cascaded down his neck and shoulders. He looked over his belly and watched the soapy water swirl beneath his feet before it disappeared down the drain, and he hummed and sighed a little, hugging his arms around himself.

It had taken him a long time after Afghanistan to even be able to tolerate water to any large degree. Showers were definitely easier than baths to deal with, though. Being under a spray wasn't quite as bad as the possibility of being held under a tub of water — not that anything of the like had happened to him since then, but it was hard to shut off that way of thinking once it had formed under duress no matter how little water he filled the tub with or how many times he checked and double-checked to make sure there were no threats in the vicinity. Things had definitely gotten better or easier for him, but he wasn't sure there would ever be a time that he wouldn't have some niggling fear at the back of his mind, some little thought that played over those horrible memories time and again.

He finished cleaning up and shut the water off, and he stepped out of the shower, wrapping a towel around his body before he twisted his hair up in one, and he padded into the bedroom and began to search through drawers for something to wear. A glance outside showed a late-spring sunset, the dark amber of dying sunshine glinting off the glass of the buildings surrounding the tower, and he frowned and wondered if it was too early for pajamas. It was a Friday night, and a quick glance at the small digital clock on the table next to Steve's side of the bed showed a time of 7:24.

That wasn't _too_ pathetic, was it?

Oh, fuck it, he decided as he grabbed a fresh pair of pajamas and dropped them on the bed. He was old, he was married, and he was _pregnant_. If that wasn't a good enough reason to be in pajamas at seven-thirty on a Friday night in May then what was?

Towel still wrapped up in his hair, he pulled the one off his torso and dried himself off, and he rolled his eyes as the super solider spawn within him decided it was time to rouse from his nap.

"Why does it always seem like you're raring to go when I'm ready to settle down?" he muttered at his errant stomach then grabbed a pair of underwear and stepped into them. "Not there ever was a question, but you are _clearly_ the child of Steve Rogers. I don't know which one of you is a bigger pain in my ass."

He snapped a bra on, rubbing his slightly tender breasts through the padded material to give himself some comfort, before he shimmied into the pajamas. He towel-dried his hair and pulled it into a ponytail, and it was as he was carrying the towels back to the bathroom to hang up (because unlike _some_ people he lived with, he hung up his wet towels) that his stomach grumbled loudly and angrily. He stopped a moment and put a hand to his stomach. Come to think of it, he hadn't had anything since that turkey sandwich he'd found earlier, and as he thought about it, it turned out he was kind of hungry.

Huh. Maybe _that's_ why the kraken was bothering him? Maybe he was hungry, too?

"Yeah, fine, you little brat," he muttered and went into the bathroom. "I'll get you something to eat."

He hung up the towels and wiped down the mirrors and straightened up what little he'd messed then crossed back into the bedroom and said, "We got anything good to eat here, J, or did my little wards eat it all?"

" _I believe there to be some of Doctor Banner's curry chicken left in the fridge_."

Tony swallowed down acid just thinking about it. "J, you know curry isn't agreeing with me at the moment."

" _I apologize, Sir, but you did only ask if there was anything edible in the Penthouse_."

Tony huffed and dropped his shoulders. "You don't have to be— Is my wayward husband anywhere around? Maybe I can get him to make a run for Italian."

He looked around for his phone to text Steve and see what the fuck he was doing and if he was up for making a food run, and he pursed his lips and frowned and looked around and said, "Say, J? You know where my phone is by any chance?"

" _I believe Agent Barton mistakenly grabbed it on his way out of the penthouse earlier, believing it to be his_."

"How? His has stupid purple arrows on the case— Never mind. Does he still have it?"

" _It appears that he returned it to the common floor for you to retrieve at your convenience_."

Tony just blinked and looked up at the ceiling. "Seriously?"

" _I believe he said he was doing his part to ensure that the common floor receives more use than it sees at current._ "

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Whatever. Fine. Can't believe I have to go chase my own fucking phone down because the assholes I live with think they're funnier than they are."

He opened the bedroom door and stepped into the hallway. His stomach grumbled again, which only seemed to aggravate little James Anthony, who went back to breakdancing or whatever the hell it was he was doing in there, and he rubbed his belly and said, "If I get you food, will you settle the fuck down?"

He wasn't sure if the bump he felt against his rib was a 'Yes' or a 'Fuck you, Pops.' Weirdly, he presumed it to be the latter.

He made his way down the steps, the living area seemingly untouched, which meant Steve still hadn't shown his face, and Tony frowned and looked around and said, "J, is Steve _anywhere_ around here?"

" _I do show Captain Rogers to be in the vicinity_."

Tony arched an eyebrow and looked up at the ceiling aga— God _damn_ it!

"Why am I adopting more of his habits than he is mine?" he muttered then said, "Be a little more vague about it, J, would you?"

" _I apologize, Sir, but you did only ask if he was, and I quote, anywhere around here._ "

"And _you_ are learning all the wrong behaviors. I'd blame Barton, but worming your way around asshole technicalities is totally a Steve-thing."

He sighed and went over to the elevator, which opened even without him having to press the button. He smirked a little, the right side of his mouth pulling up, and said, "Yeah, don't think this gets you off the hook. All right, common floor, J. Let me go grab my phone so I can try to track down my missing husband that is _totally_ giving a full-body massage after this. I mean, once he runs out and brings me back half the menu from Mama Lucita's. Fuck, is it normal to be this hungry? I could eat a fucking horse."

" _I shouldn't think you could_ ," JARVIS replied as the doors closed.

"Sass-bot," Tony muttered. He leaned against the rear wall of the car and folded his arms, waiting the few moments it took to arrive at the designated floor, wondering if he was craving more red sauce or Alfredo. He'd say why not both, but he didn't want to be a glutton, even if Steve would gladly polish off what he couldn't or didn't. And if Steve didn't, there was always his merry band of pranksters.

Now, and speaking of those barnacles, why the hell weren't they making themselves at home in his penthouse like they did every other hour of the day? Oh, right. Because it was going for eight o'clock on a Friday night, and they all had lives.

Except Steve. Now, where in the hell was that bastard?

The car arrived at the floor, announcing its arrival with a 'ding.' The doors slid open, and as they did, someone said a quiet, " _Now_ ," and the lights came up as at least a dozen voices chorused a cheerful and loud, "Happy Birthday!" at him.

He screamed — high-pitched and equal parts startled and terrified — and stumbled back. He hit against something solid, and once he was able to focus on just _what_ he was seeing in front of him, he realized that something solid was the wall of the elevator, which he'd fallen back against in his shock, one hand braced against the back wall while the other clutched at his chest.

He panted out a breath, and he swallowed and pushed away from the back wall of the elevator and took a few slow, unsure steps off the car and onto the main floor of the common area. He took in the sight before him of his friends, all standing there looking both confused and abashed, balloons filling the air and confetti littering every discernable surface with colorful streamers canopying from the ceiling and a big 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY!' banner hung from one corner to another. There was a table stacked with colorfully-wrapped gifts to one side and two others that were set up like a buffet.

Steve, dressed rather enticingly in a deep blue dress shirt and a pair of black slacks that made Tony, in his comfortable gray and black pajamas, feel like a fucking vagrant, took a few slow, hesitant steps in his direction, never taking his eyes off Tony, and sounding like he'd suddenly realized this hadn't been his best idea after all, he said, "I, uh, I wanted to surprise you."

"Yeah?" he breathed out and finally dropped his hand from his chest. "Mission accomplished."

And then, from the middle of the heretofore silent group, Barnes blew into one of those unfurling, squawking noisemakers, a cheesy 'Happy Birthday!' pointed hat on his head, and yet somehow, a glowering look on his face.

Tony burst out laughing at this.

Barnes seemed to understand Tony was laughing at him, as he heard him say a confused, "What?" But Tony just kept on laughing. It was so absurd. He looked so…so _miserable_ , and yet he was standing there with a goddamned shiny party hat and a fucking noisemaker hanging out of his mouth.

He continued to laugh, and Steve reached out and rubbed his arms and said, "Uh, sorry? I don't, um—"

But Tony shook his head to wave off his concern and said, "No, no, it's— It doesn't matter." He got hold of himself and looked at Steve. "OK, yeah, so, next time you want to surprise me, try not to give me a heart attack, huh?"

He reached up and patted Steve's chest, and Steve pulled a hand away from Tony's arm to cover the hand that was resting against him. He reached out and kissed Tony's forehead and said, "Happy Birthday."

"Aw, that's sweet, honey, but that was yesterday."

"Yeah," Barton called out, "but you can't have a party on a Thursday. Cap said so."

"You know," Wilson added, "'cause it's a school night."

He glanced at them a moment before he looked to Steve for explanation, and Steve shrugged and said, "I told you. I wanted it to be a surprise."

"What?"

Steve nodded behind him. "This."

Tony flashed a tight smile at him. "Yeah. You sure you didn't just plan this all at the last minute because JARVIS let it slip that I was maybe a little upset about it?"

Steve patted the hand that still rested against his chest. "Yeah, JARVIS told me about that. I'm sorry. I didn't want you to— I just wanted to surprise you. When you started dropping your hints about it the other day, I was afraid I was going to give the whole thing away—"

Tony arched an eyebrow. "So, that's why you pretended to be an ass about it?"

Steve grimaced a little. "Sorry."

He nodded and turned to the rest of the assorted group. "And the rest of you? Is that your excuse, too?"

Bruce and Natasha and even Thor shrugged their agreement. Barton just said, "Yeah, nobody told me about this until five minutes ago."

Steve glanced back at him, Stare of Disappointment already formed and ready to induce guilt. " _Clint_ ," Steve said, firmly and with just a hint of disapproval.

"Yeah, all right, fine," he said with a sigh. "Your sappy-as-fuck hubby wanted to throw you a surprise birthday party and asked us not to say anything to you about it."

"So, you decided to act like assholes to me?"

Most of the perpetrators had the decency to look somewhat ashamed and repentant, and Steve lowered his head some and said, "Yeah, that…that wasn't the plan."

"Hey!" Barton called out. "You said you'd take full responsibility for whatever shit we did or said!"

"No," Steve said with a slight shake of his head, "I said I'd take full responsibility if it _backfired_."

He shot Barton another look, but Tony huffed out a breath and said, "Whatever," and pulled away from Steve and moved over to the crowd. Someone, he presumed JARVIS, started piping in some music as he hugged Rhodey 'hello' and kissed Pepper's cheek and let Happy pull him in for a bear hug. Wilson slapped his back and wished him a 'Happy Birthday, man' and Bruce smiled and said, "Happy Birthday, Tony." Hill wished him the same, and Thor said something about extending his best wishes on the joyous anniversary of his birth. He thought about correcting him on that but decided to just let it slide at the last minute. It wasn't worth being pedantic over.

Natasha went up on her toes and kissed his cheek and said, "Happy Birthday, _solnyshko_ ," while Barnes, still wearing that stupid party hat, looked at him and said, "How old are you, anyway?"

He shrugged. "Technically forty-four, but you tell me." He motioned over himself. "Does this look forty-four?"

Barnes looked him over like he was actually considering this while Natasha smiled at him and said, "You look good."

Tony tilted his head at her, making a face like he wasn't sure how to take her words, as Barnes said, "I'm gonna say 'no,'" evidently in answer to Tony's question.

Tony turned to him and smiled, pleased by this. "Thank you."

But Barnes wasn't finished, and he considered Tony a little more before he said, "Thirty-five?"

Well, it was technically younger than what JARVIS had even said at the beginning of this.

He grinned at him. " _You_ are my new favorite. I hope Wilson doesn't mind being replaced."

"I'm sure he'll survive it," Natasha said and patted his arm, "but I do think it's something he should be made aware of," and Barnes looked at her and said, "Do I actually get anything, or is it an honorary thing?"

" _Get_ anything?" Tony said before Natasha could respond. "You get free room and board in fucking Midtown. What more could you _possibly_ want?"

He'd intended it solely as a petulant joke on his part, but Barnes's face clouded over a little at that, his gaze breaking and darting to another part of the room, and Natasha pulled away from Tony and pushed into Barnes's space and said, "Let's go get something to eat before Thor and Steve eat most of it."

Barnes nodded slightly and let himself be led away, and Tony frowned as he watched them go, wondering what he'd said to make Barnes close in on himself like that. Was it the question about what more he wanted? He'd only meant it as a joke.

Though he supposed he could understand why it might set him off just a little.

"You know, I actually didn't believe it until this moment."

Tony turned and smiled in greeting at the lovely and charming Doctor Jane Foster, who stood there looking up at him, a glass of punch in her hand and a smile quirking her lips.

"I'm still not sure I believe it," the ever-helpful Darcy offered. Oh, right. He forgot that wherever Jane went, Darcy seemed to follow. He'd probably only ever met her twice before this. As far as he could remember, that was twice enough.

"Hey, stop!" Jane told her then turned a softer smile on Tony again. "So," she said, eager to have knowledge imparted on her, "what's it like?"

"Yeah," Darcy said, "is it weird having to sit down to pee?"

Jane just sighed and rolled her eyes, but Darcy stared at Tony very seriously, head tilted like she actually wanted to _know_ what Tony thought about this.

Instead, Tony pointed to Darcy and said to Jane, "I'm not sure I'm so crazy about her knowing about this."

Jane opened her mouth to say something, but Darcy made a 'pfft' sound and rolled her eyes and said, " _Please!_ I've known about this for a while, Tin Man."

Tony turned to her, startled. "Um, what?"

He caught Jane grimacing, and instead of asking her, he instead turned to the just-arriving giant, blonde gossipmonger himself, who smiled a little sheepishly and said, "I did not think there was anything wrong in telling Jane about it."

"Jane? No," Tony said then jerked his head at Darcy. "That one? Yeah, wouldn't have been my first move."

But Darcy just smiled at him, and she blinked slowly and scrunched her nose a little and said, "How much is this secret worth to you?"

" _Darcy!_ " Jane snapped.

"Relax!" she said and waved off Jane's concern. "I'm not gonna say anything. It's a lot more fun being in-the-know. It's like I'm an honorary Avenger."

"Yeah," Rhodey said, appearing, thankfully, from nowhere. "You're not an Avenger."

But Darcy was not deterred, and she patted his arm and said, "I'm sorry, honey. Part-timers don't get to make that decision."

"What decision?" Steve asked, sidling up to them. He slipped an arm around Tony's waist and pulled him close and kissed his temple.

"Oh, great," Darcy murmured under her breath as she glanced away innocently. "The hall monitor's here."

Steve's hearing was impeccable, though, so there was no question that he heard Darcy's comment loud and clear. Not that he did anything but shoot her a Stare of Disapproval. He then turned to Jane and smiled cordially and said, "Doctor Foster."

"Captain," she replied in the same manner, but Steve shook his head at her.

"Call me 'Steve.' Please."

"OK, _Steve_ , but only if you call me 'Jane.'"

"Oh, my _god_ ," Darcy moaned. "What is this? _Masterpiece Theatre_? Are we expecting the Viscount of Barnswallow to arrive at any minute?"

Rhodey just clicked his tongue and said, "You know, I _can't_ understand why you're still single."

She made another 'pfft' sound and said, "Who says I'm single? And even if I was, there's nothing wrong with being single, and I'm disappointed in you, Colonel, for inferring that there might be. This is the twenty-first century, and a girl doesn't have to be attached to a man's arm in order to make a worthwhile contribution to society. She can be her own woman without having to be some guy's other half— Or some _woman's_ other half. Again, this _is_ the twenty-first century. Get with the program."

Rhodey just blinked at her, and he looked between her, then Steve and Tony, then Jane and Thor, then back to an innocent-looking Darcy before he shook his head and said, "I'm out," and walked away, leaving Darcy to beam like an undefeated champion in his wake.

"See? _This_ is why I don't like to take you places," Jane said, exasperation evident in her voice.

But it was like Darcy wasn't even listening to her. She just looked at Tony and said, "So, orgasms. Which one's better? I mean is it better as a lady or a dude?"

Jane's mouth dropped like she couldn't believe Darcy had the gall to ask, and Steve coughed and clamped his mouth shut and smiled tightly like they'd moved into an uncomfortable subject for him. Thor, though, was the one to say, "I do not believe that is anyone's business aside from the Man of Iron and his Captain."

"Oh, come on!" Darcy cried. "He's probably the luckiest person in the world. I mean, I'm never going to know what it's like to jerk off. I mean, not _like that_. Again, twenty-first century, and sometimes, your own hand is your best friend."

Steve murmured a disbelieving, "Oh, my God," under his breath, and Jane stuttered a few words then said, "There's a _lot_ more to it, I'm sure, than just masturbating," sounding like she couldn't believe she actually had to say those words.

"Sure," Darcy agreed with a nod then told Tony very seriously, "Don't ever get a yeast infection. _Not_ fun."

" _OK!_ " Jane cried and grabbed onto Darcy's arm. "We're going to leave you alone for a while now!"

And then, she began to drag Darcy away from them, but not before Darcy was able to call out to them, "Think about what I asked! I want an answer before I leave tonight!"

Thor followed after them, and after he'd gone, Tony said, "Well, that was a stimulating conversation."

"Is that what that was?" Steve mused.

Tony hummed and said, "More generous than saying a gigantic waste of time."

Steve kissed his temple again and rubbed his side, and Tony's stomach grumbled again. He put a hand to just above the swell of his abdomen and said, "Oh, right."

"What?"

"Hmm? Oh, well, before I nearly had the life scared out of me, I was coming down here to get my phone so I could text you to get me something to eat. I haven't eaten since I found a turkey sandwich down on my worktable earlier."

Steve grinned at him and nudged him a little. "And you say I can't cook."

Really, he hadn't doubted Steve had been the sandwich-bringer for a second.

"Yeah, slapping some deli meat and cheese and lettuce and tomato and mayo on a couple of pieces of rye isn't exactly 'cooking.'"

"I still know how to properly feed and care for my Tony Stark," Steve said and gave him a gentle squeeze. "Come on," he said and led him over to the buffet table. "I'm kind of hungry myself."

"Is it Italian?"

"Of course."

So, they ate and they chatted and mingled with the crowd that Tony realized in a moment of reflection when Steve went to get him a glass of non-spiked punch was the best and truest group of friends he'd ever had in his life. In fact, except for Rhodey and then Pepper and Happy (even if they'd begun as paid assistants to him), he'd never really had _friends_. Oh, he'd had 'friends,' but he'd never had actual _friends_ , _real_ friends — people to rely on or depend on or just call up to bullshit with every so often. So many of the people he'd come into contact with over his life had only ever been interested in him for what he could give them — what he could provide for them and nothing else.

But not this crew.

Oh, sure, he gave them weapons and a place to stay rent-free (in _Manhattan_ , of all places!), but he knew that this camaraderie was not based solely on that. It was not based solely on what they could get from him. It wasn't even because he was Steve's other half and they had to humor Steve to stay in his good graces.

No, these people were here, had decorated his penthouse and brought him food and presents, because they _wanted_ to be here — because they _wanted_ to celebrate with him. He marveled at this — at this disparate group of people that, five years ago, he could not have imagined putting up with beyond however long it took to take the picture.

Now, he couldn't imagine his life without them.

He stood back, smiling a little, watching as Thor, with Jane and Darcy flanking him, mimed something seemingly surreal and heroic to a clearly unimpressed Rhodey while Pepper and Happy stood with their plates of food and chatted with Natasha. Barnes and Wilson were having some battle of wits — Barnes still decked out in that stupid party hat but seeming to have recovered from his earlier moroseness. Barton stood between them, a plate in hand and a look on his face that Tony knew was the asshole making some comment that would do nothing more than egg him on. Bruce was over at the bar mixing up something for Hill, both of them deep in a discussion about something.

He loved them. He could honestly say he loved them and could truly, honestly, not imagine having to go back to a time when he didn't know them, when he didn't realize what he was actually missing from life. A time when, as a very wise man had once said, he had everything and nothing. He didn't want to go back to that. He didn't ever want to lose this.

Or _this_ , he realized as Steve returned, slurping down his own glass of punch as he handed one over to Tony. Tony took it and nodded his thanks, and after Steve had drained half his glass, he smiled a little sheepishly and said, "You're not mad at me, are you?"

Tony shook his head. "No," he replied earnestly. "Your heart was in the right place. Your head was in your ass, but your heart was in the right place."

Steve barked out a laugh while Tony took a gulp of punch, and he smacked his lips some and said, "So, uh, is there _cake_ to go with these festivities, or—?"

Steve just grinned and nodded at him. "Oh," he said, a little proud and a little mischievous, "there's cake."

Oh, god. What did _that_ imply?

His eyes went a little wide in horror as Steve glanced over to Natasha and nodded at her, and Natasha's face went sober and serious as she nodded back and made her excuses to Pepper and Happy. She passed by Wilson, Barnes, and Barton on the way, snagging hold of Barnes's arm, dragging him away from whatever discussion, argument, or pissing match he and Wilson were currently engaged in — and this, of course, did nothing but give Wilson some hollow sense of victory if the proud nod and the grin were anything to go by.

As Barnes and Natasha went into the kitchen, Barton seemed to realize what that portended, and he turned to Tony and grinned and said, "Oh, man, you're going to _love_ it."

Tony just glanced up to Steve, and Steve must have sensed his concern — the terrified look on his face probably clued him in — as he laughed and said, "It's fine. Seriously, you're going to love it. I promise."

"Really?"

"Really."

Tony nodded, and Rhodey came up to them and said to Steve, "Is it what I think it is?"

"It is," Steve said with a sagely nod.

"Nice," Rhodey said with a nod.

"Wait," Tony said and jerked a thumb at Rhodey, "even the part-time Avenger knows?"

"You've _really_ stooped to listening to Darcy?" Rhodey asked, thoroughly unimpressed. "You know this is the woman that refers to Mjölnir as 'Mew-Mew,' right?"

"Well," he said with a shrug, "you're the one that thinks you're too good for our little boy-band, which…yeah, I mean, I guess isn't _just_ a boy-band now. Maybe we're more like the Cowsills or the Partridge Family now or something?"

" _Who?_ " Steve murmured, more to himself than to Tony or Rhodey, and Rhodey shook off his concern and said, "Don't worry about it. Tones's pop culture references are just forty years out of date."

"Or maybe the Von Trapps," he said, ignoring Rhodey's jibe at him. "You know, 'cause Nazis."

Rhodey just shook his head, and Tony quirked his head a little and said, "No, I changed my mind. I'm going with Sly and the Family Stone."

Steve looked to Rhodey for explanation, but Rhodey just put a hand up and shook his head a little as though to say it wasn't important or worth the time to explain, and Tony watched him a moment before he said, "Hey."

"'Hey' what?"

"Why don't you join us? Permanently?"

"Uh—" he said and glanced to Steve before he looked back at Tony again. "You mean the Avengers?"

"Yeah. What else would I mean?"

Rhodey stared at him a moment then said, "Oh! Uh, nothing. Not—"

"Wait, did you think I was asking you to join me and Steve for a threesome?"

Rhodey made a few hesitant utterances then said, "What— Uh, I mean, I didn't _think_ that's what you meant."

Tony just frowned innocently at him. "What? Were you _thinking_ about it?"

"No, I wasn't— It just _sounded_ like you were—"

"I didn't know you were interested—"

"I'm not—"

"I mean, I'm flattered, obviously, but I'm sort of a one-man kind-of-guy, and Steve _definitely_ is. If you thought _I_ had problems with sharing, clearly you do not know Steve as well I as I do."

Rhodey put a hand out to silence them like this was his final word on the matter. "Look, I'm very happy for you. I think you're good for each other, and I think you make each other really happy. I think Steve's the best thing that's ever happened to you, and I think you're crazy lucky to have found each other. But I do _not_ , under any circumstances, want to join you for a threesome. And before you try to parse my words and say I have something against threesomes, I don't. Not my thing, but I don't care what anyone else does. And you two are looking for something to spice up the bedroom, which _really?_ "

He motioned over Tony like that explained what he hadn't said, but Tony just raised an eyebrow and said, "Now _that_ is what you call a suspiciously specific denial."

Rhodey sighed and shook his head. "No, it's—"

"I'm flattered, sugar bear, I really am. I'm totally honored that you would think of me and Steve that way, but like I said, one-man-kind-of-guy. I just— I hope things won't be awkward between us now."

Rhodey just stared at him before he blinked and looked at Steve.

"He is _totally_ all yours," he said, his tone flat. Steve saw this more as a compliment than the slight exasperation that Rhodey intended it to be, and, with one arm around him, he hugged Tony close and pressed a kiss to his temple.

"I know," he murmured just as Barnes began to wheel something aflame out of the kitchen.

He pulled away from Steve some to get a better look at it, and as Barnes wheeled it closer, Tony saw it was one of his tool carts they were using, and on top of it was a cake littered in lit candles.

An _Iron Man_ cake littered in candles.

He squawked out a laugh as Barnes finally came to a stop right in front of Tony, and as his friends began to sing out a verse of 'Happy Birthday to You,' Tony looked down at the cake that was made in the shape and color of the Iron Man helmet, marveling at the richness of the colors and the pretty decent depiction of one of the more common armors he wore — usually to charity events and children's hospitals, as those were really the only places the public could get a good look at the armor.

They finished singing, and he looked around at all of them and said, "Where—?"

"That little bakery in Brooklyn Maria got your wedding cake at," Natasha said, a knife and a stack of plates in her hands. "Turns out they take requests."

"And they're not half-bad at it," Steve said then nudged Tony a little bit. "Go on. Make a wish and blow out the candles."

Honestly, that was one tradition Tony was actually OK with partaking in.

"OK," Barton said, "but you gotta make sure to get them all out in one breath, otherwise your wish won't come true."

"That's not true," Rhodey said.

"That's totally true," Barton countered. "They teach you that in, like, Old Wives' Tales 101."

"I guess SHIELD really prepared you guys for everything and anything, didn't they?" Bruce mused.

Tony just waved at them to shut up so he could concentrate, making a face and a little whine as he did so, and though he was certain that Barton was full of shit and there was no truth to what he was saying, he still… Well, he'd be lying if he didn't admit to himself, gazing over the array of candles that covered the cake, that he wasn't willing to take as much assurance as possible. It was stupid and superstitious and Tony felt himself to be above that, yes, but—

Well, it _did_ rain on his and Steve's wedding day, and that was supposed to be good luck, right?

He let his gaze linger over the cake, watching each of the tiny flames flicker, small beads of wax dripping down them and onto the icing, and with his friends — his family — surrounding him and the world at large seemingly at peace for once, he took a breath and made exactly one wish—

_Please, please don't ever let this end. Please let it always be like this for us._

—and blew on the candles.


	24. Chapter 24

* * *

It was that time of year — the time of the annual Foundation gala.

The Avengers had been a featured attraction of the gala the past two years, and this year was expected to be no different, no matter how much Barton hedged on whether he was even going or not or how much Bruce hesitated and said he'd probably have contracted some ancient fever that night or how much Steve claimed that he had better things to do than glad-hand and hobnob. They were all going, they were all expected to be going, and that was that.

Except Tony.

Tony wasn't usually one for skipping the Foundation's annual gala. It really did feel like the height of bad taste, plus, it was for a good cause, and he usually got to say a few words about the money that was raised and the programs it would support. The thing was, this was the first year that the gala would come around (early this year, for some reason) while Tony was a _woman_ , and that… would have been a little difficult to explain to the attendees. Or it _would have been_ difficult to explain Natasha Carbonell's attendance to the other attendees, especially given the rampant media speculation about her and Steve and what their relationship was doing to the Avengers.

And also those persistent rumors that 'Natasha Carbonell' was really 'Tony Stark.'

But now that there was no chance of Tony ever going back to the body he'd been born with, and with questions about Steve and Tony and 'Natasha' and the Avengers as a whole growing by the day, there was really no reason for him _not_ to attend. Besides, they wanted to get this whole thing out in the open now and lay everyone's questions and concerns to rest, what better way to start doing that than by showing up to the Stark Foundation gala, pregnant and glowing and hanging off the arm of a handsome super soldier?

Pepper was surprised when Tony informed her he _would_ be attending the gala that year (though not giving any speeches; the hell with that). Surprised, but supportive. The Board was breathing down her neck about Tony's disappearance, and she was growing frustrated by the day at the way the media was spinning the whole affair into some illicit and scandalous debacle that called everyone's morality and mentality into question. She had been Tony's friend long before they'd ever attempted to date, and even if their romance hadn't worked out, she was still his friend first and foremost.

" _You don't know how hard it is to keep quiet about this sort of thing_ ," she told him over the phone not long after he and Steve had made their appearance at the gallery. " _Sometimes I want to knock those old bastards' teeth right out of their mouths the way they talk about you_."

"Hmm…" Tony murmured, considering this as he glanced over a contract Pepper had sent over prior to the call. "They believe the attempted suicide story?"

" _I think so. I_ know _they believe 'Natasha' is a gold-digging, to use their word,_ tramp _, which has got them_ very _nervous because someone_ did _find a certain marriage license on file in New York County for 'Steven Grant Rogers' and 'Anthony Edward Stark,' and they're not doing a very good job of convincing themselves it's just a coincidence._ "

"Well, it's not," Tony said and swiped at a screen to read over the next page. "And they should be nervous. Anything happens to me, Captain America is the rightful owner of Stark Industries. It's in my will— I think it's in my will. J?" he called out and glanced up at the— Oh, for the love of— "I ever get my will amended?"

" _You did, Sir, naming Captain Rogers as both your Executor and as your rightful heir to your residuary estate. As you own the controlling interest of Stark Industries, and as ownership of that was not specifically devised in your will, ownership of the controlling interests of the company would fall to Captain Rogers in the event of your early demise_."

Pepper was silent for a moment before she asked, somewhat incredulous, " _You made Steve your_ Executor?"

"Uh," he said and sat back a little, frowning at her concern. "Why? You don't think he'd want to do it? Look, he's very detailed and very anal about those sorts of things. I figured he'd be a natural. Oh! Unless this is about, um, me not picking _you_ —"

Pepper signed a little. " _No, Tony, it's not that. It's just—_ "

"What, jelly belly?"

" _Nothing_ ," she said, though from the tone of her voice, it was most certainly _something_.

But, not wanting to dwell on that, he let it slide and instead, abruptly changed the subject, asking Pepper if she knew of any designers that had any experience with maternity evening gowns. She seemed startled by the change but still was able to get control of herself enough to say that she did, and two days later, two people in tailored and expensive wear appeared at the Tower to take measurements. Not particularly enthused about letting them into the penthouse — or any of the Avengers' personal spaces — Tony instead met them in a lower floor conference room and stood there in his underwear (which he was _not_ happy about) as they ran measuring tapes all over his body, wrote down things, and nodded to each other about suggested styles and materials, Natasha sitting in a leather-backed chair and watching them for any suspicious activity. After the measurements had been taken, one held different swatches of color and material up against him as the other looked on, and finally in disgust, the woman turned to Natasha and snapped, "Make yourself useful and do something with her hair," motioning to Tony as though the sight of Tony's long, somewhat unkempt dark tresses personally offended her.

Natasha arched an eyebrow at her but still got up from her chair and went to stand behind Tony, pulling the strands of dark waves together and holding them back in an approximation of what he remembered Pepper calling one time a 'French twist.'

"Slightly more presentable," the woman muttered then barked at her assistant to pick up a different swatch of color and material. As the younger woman did so, the designer sighed and muttered, "Miss Potts thinks I'm a _miracle worker_ or something."

Tony didn't know whether that was a slight at his figure or the fact that the woman didn't have much time to work with.

Though even Tony could say the woman was no slouch, as the afternoon of the gala, the woman and her assistant returned with a floor-length black satin and gossamer evening gown with what was described as a having banded empire waist. This time, he allowed them into the penthouse, and while the assistant worked at pulling out the dress and laying it over the couch, the designer looked over the room, and Tony almost felt like she was sniffing at his design choices. While the assistant pulled out some little hand tool that she explained was a 'steamer' to 'steam out' the wrinkles of the dress, the designer stepped over to Tony, her metal bangle bracelets jingling as she tweaked a smile at him.

"Aren't you the lucky woman?" she mused before something the assistant did caught her attention out of the corner of her eye, and she grumbled and said, "No, Jeannie, not like _that!_ "

She went over and began to show the assistant what _she_ thought was the proper way to do something, and Natasha stood at Tony's elbow and said, "She's a charming one, isn't she?"

"Pepper said she's the best."

Natasha shrugged a little, and the designer, done berating the assistant for the time being, turned her attention back to Tony, but Natasha and her ensemble caught her eye, and she took a sweeping gaze over Natasha's red, strapless A-line and said a slightly smug, "Off-the-rack?"

Natasha sucked in a breath, but Tony put a quick hand to her arm and said a calm, "Nope," as Natasha took one step to advance on her to do…something. Who knew? He didn't think Natasha was the type to allow herself to get worked up over petty comments about her attire.

After all the wrinkles had been steamed out of the gown, Natasha and the assistant helped him into the designer's most rushed creation (she let them know this about five times in the time it took for Tony to step into the gown and for the other two to get him situated and zipped into it). There was no mirror in the penthouse living area, and so Tony didn't know what he looked like yet, but both the assistant and Natasha seemed to think it looked OK on him, if their smiles were anything to go by, and even the designer managed something like relief when she saw the way it fit him.

"Ideally," she said as she stepped over and began to pull and tug at things, "I'd have you come in for _several_ fittings to get this perfect, but of course, the time doesn't allow for that."

Tony gasped a little as she actually had the audacity to reach in and adjust his breasts to best fit into the V-neck bodice of the gown, demanding the double-sided tape from the assistant when she'd gotten the fit just so.

"Wait," Tony said as he looked down to watch, "you're actually taping me into this thing."

"I don't want you going out there looking like you got something _off-the-rack_ ," she muttered, ensuring that the 'V' of the bodice was even and his ample cleavage was centered. She even taped the straps, which were gathered at the shoulder with a thin strap of satin, and Tony suddenly felt more like a show piece than he ever had in his life, especially when the assistant sewed some kind of rhinestone-encrusted scroll-like, flowery accent piece to the band just beneath and to the side of his left breast.

"It's not _rhinestones_ ," the designer muttered like she couldn't believe Tony would even think such a thing.

After ensuring that the hem was correct for the shoes Tony had chosen to wear, the straps were even, the accent piece wasn't going anywhere, and the gossamer flowed and swayed the right way when Tony took each step, the designer and her assistant gathered up their things and left, and as the designer stepped onto the elevator, she turned back and smiled at Tony and said, "I'm sure Miss Potts will forward my bill to you."

The doors closed, and Natasha turned to Tony and said, "I hope you like this dress. It probably the most expensive piece of clothing you've ever bought."

He looked down at himself, brushing a hand over his gossamer-and-satin-covered belly and said, "I don't even know what I look like. Does it look OK?"

Natasha smiled at him, and she reached up and pushed a stray hair that had come out of the twist she'd done for him back into place. "It looks OK," she replied. "She's a bitch, but clearly she's a damned good designer. Why don't you go see for yourself?" She glanced at her watch and said, "I have to go round up the others."

"You guys are going to show up, aren't you?"

She reached down and grabbed her small purse from the table. "Yes," she said and pulled her phone out to check it. "We'll be there." She nodded upstairs and added, "Now, go show Steve. I'm surprised he wasn't down here to see this dog-and-pony show for himself."

"Not sure he wanted anything to do with it," he replied then followed Natasha's advice and went over to the steps. Natasha called out to him that she'd see him in a bit, and then she was gone, presumably to collect the other wayward Avengers that were looking forward to this event with as much enthusiasm as one would going for a root canal.

Tony pulled himself up the stairs, holding up the skirt of the dress with one hand so he wouldn't trip on it, and he went over to the bedroom and let himself in only to see that Steve was _just_ getting out of the shower, parading out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel around his waist and his hair wet and slicked back from his forehead.

He folded his arms and went to rest them beneath his breasts, but remembering the massive amounts of tape that covered him from shoulder-to-belly, he instead dropped his arms and put his hands to his lower back.

"Seriously?" he muttered as Steve went over to the dresser. Steve chuckled a little and glanced over to him.

"Fell asleep?"

Tony shook his head and pushed further into the room, and he rolled his eyes at the way Steve just so carelessly tossed his used bath towel onto the bed after he'd grabbed a pair of black boxer-briefs from the drawer. He reached out to grab the towel from the bed, having every intention of going into the bathroom to hang it back up again, but then he caught sight of Steve's chiseled ass cheeks of perfection, and he stood there, head tilted as he watched the muscles ripple and flex as Steve stepped into the small, snug pair of underwear.

"We don't have time for that now," Steve said, not even bothering to glance back at Tony. He just _knew_ what Tony was staring at.

"I could suck you off?"

Steve turned to him, grabbing a tight, white undershirt and pulling it over his head. He nodded at Tony's ensemble and said, "Wouldn't want to mess up that nice, new dress."

He started to pull his eyes away to go about his dressing, but they stayed glued to the prominent curves on display through the gown — the curve of his belly and the swell of his breasts.

Tony, knowing exactly what had caught Steve's attention, smiled a little, and then he put his hands up to his breasts and cupped them gently through the material, making sure not to rip any of the tape that was keeping the material attached to them.

"Oh," he said and carefully ran his hands from his breasts down and over his belly. "What do you think? Is it OK?"

He watched as Steve swallowed, his gazing raking over Tony from head-to-toe before settling back at his most prominent attributes.

"Ye— uh, _yeah_ ," he said, stumbling over such a simple word. "It looks fine."

Tony hummed a little, pleased by Steve's reaction, and as Steve stood there and worked to get his brain back online, Tony grabbed the towel from the bed and went into the bathroom to hang it up to dry. He turned and caught sight of himself in the mirror for the first time since he'd let the others play dress-up with him, and he smiled at the picture that stared back at him, agreeing with Natasha's assessment that the designer might have been a bitch, but she was damned good at her job. Although…

He frowned just a little at the very prominent cleavage.

There was sure to be another pervtacular comment from Barton coming his way before the end of the night.

He sighed, figuring one of these days Barton would push his comments too far and get a shield to the face for it, and went back into the bedroom.

Steve stood next to the dresser, a pair of black socks and a white dress shirt now covering his body in addition to the underwear, and Tony went over beside him, smiling a little smugly at the fact that there wasn't _as much_ of a difference in their heights now that Steve was in socks and Tony was wearing a small heel. He watched as Steve pulled a small box from his sock drawer and cracked it open to reveal the sterling cufflinks Tony had bought him for an anniversary.

"Hmm…" he said, watching as Steve pulled them from their velvet encasing. "Going all-out tonight, are we?"

Steve stole a glance over at him as he snapped the box shut. "Well, my date kinda looks like a knockout. Don't want to embarrass him in front of the guests."

He set about fastening the cufflinks, and Tony preened a little and said, "A knockout, huh?"

"That's one way of putting it," he said, finishing with one and moving to the other cuff.

Tony made a 'hmm' sound and looked at the picture they made in the mirror together. Not bad, but then, even in his other body, he and Steve had always 'looked right' as a couple. "So, you won't be embarrassed to be seen with me?"

Steve finished fastening the other cuff. "Not tonight, at least." He nodded at Tony's feet and added, "I see you've decided to go a bit more, uh, _conservative_ with your heel."

Tony attempted to put his hands on his hips. "Look at me, Steve," he said and fumbled for where to put his hands given his disappeared waistline. "Does it really look like I should attempt to balance on anything above two inches? Aside from the fact that I'm not sure my ankles could take the balancing act."

But Steve just grabbed his tuxedo pants from the bed, and as he shook them out and went to step into them, he went a little serious and said, "You know, there's really no going back after this. Everyone's going to know. Not just people at an art gallery or Twitter. They're going to have camera crews there and everything."

"I know," he said, finding to his surprise that the words stung just a little bit. He'd wanted to be done with the pretending and the charades, but now that the end had dawned for good, he found he maybe wasn't _quite_ ready to let go of it just yet.

"Are you sure you're OK with it?" Steve asked, pulling his pants up and tucking his shirt into them.

He shrugged. "Do I have a choice?"

"Always," Steve said without hesitation, and Tony just hummed and said, "Yeah, I'm not so sure about that, given that _this_ —" he motioned over himself, "—was more or less forced on me."

Steve buttoned and zipped then moved so he was crowding into Tony's space, and he took Tony's face in his hands and tilted his head up at him. "But you've dealt with it far better than I ever could," he murmured and stroked his thumbs very gently over Tony's blush-highlighted cheekbones. "I really am just so proud of you."

Before Tony could say anything, he brought his mouth down and met Tony's in a soft and tender kiss, and Tony melted into it, losing himself in Steve's touch, wanting never, ever to be apart from this man.

Steve broke the kiss with a soft peck of parting and stood away, and he went over to the bed and grabbed the box with his wingtips, taking the top off and frowning at what he found there.

"Damn," he muttered.

"What?"

"I forgot to polish these."

He frowned and muttered to himself and glanced around as he tried to remember where he'd left the shoe polish, and Tony rolled his eyes and said, "Honey, they look fine, and besides, with me hanging off your arm, they're _not_ going to be looking at your shoes."

Steve turned to him, almost like he was personally affronted. "I can't go out without polished shoes."

Tony watched as he went over to the bathroom and rummaged around in the small storage closet beside the linen cupboard, and he called out to him, "This is one of those old people 'I'm poor as dirt but I have too much pride not to look my best in public' things, isn't it?"

Steve closed up the cupboard, and he came back into the bedroom, the tin of polish and a rag in-hand, and said, "My mother raised me right."

He sat down on the corner chair, and he set the shoes on the floor before he opened the tin of black shoe polish and took some onto the rag. He picked up one of the shoes and began to rub the polish into it, and Tony stood there and watched for a few moments before he said, "How long is this going to take?"

Steve shrugged. "Not too long. I won't do as good a job as I normally do."

It ended up taking about half-an-hour for Steve to polish up his shoes, his 'not as good a job' being a pretty particular and meticulous endeavor that made his wingtips practically sparkle. They missed the ride with the others, Natasha calling up the stairs that they were leaving now and Tony having to call back down that they weren't ready yet because _someone_ had to polish his damned shoes.

"We'll wait for you," Natasha called up.

"No, that's fine," he yelled, hanging out the bedroom door to do so. "We'll…find our way over somehow. Pep's already there, and if at least one Avenger doesn't show up soon, her ulcer's going to flare up."

"Pepper has an ulcer?" Steve asked, pausing his polishing as genuine concern leeched into his voice.

Tony turned back around and pointed to him. "You! Finish what you're doing!"

Steve just laughed and went back to polishing.

Of course, by the time Steve finally finished and was comfortable with the job he'd done, Tony had to pee again, and he grumbled and fumbled with the dress then sighed and looked at Steve and said, "Help me."

Steve just finished lacing up his shoes and looked up at Tony. "With what?"

He huffed and said, "I need you to hold my dress while I pee."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "Can't you just take it off?"

"I'm literally taped into this thing," he said and nodded down at his cleavage.

Steve shrugged and got to his feet, and he followed Tony into the bathroom and didn't put up one ounce of fight as Tony directed him at what to do and how and where to hold the dress before he was able to relieve himself, sighing in relief as he did so.

"What are you going to do if you have to pee there?" Steve asked, holding up the dress as Tony finished his business.

"Well, I guess you're just going to have to follow me in."

Steve just nodded, and Tony suspected he was already figuring out a game plan for how they were even going to go about that.

After washing up and getting his clothing situated again, Tony went back into the bedroom where Steve was just shrugging into his tuxedo jacket, bowtie already fastened. He grabbed his keys and his wallet from the dresser and said, "Guess we should get going."

"Oh, are you sure?" Tony said. "You don't think it's too _early_ to head over there?"

Steve just shot him a look as he pocketed his keys and his wallet.

"I don't know how we're getting over there now, but yeah, fine, we'll go," Tony said.

Steve shrugged. "We'll take our car. I overheard someone say there was valet parking." Tony hedged, not really comfortable leaving his car with the valet, but Steve shrugged. "Or we could walk over. It's up to you."

Tony put his hands to his hips again, finding it easier this time than it had been before. "You're going to make me walk over there in _this_ dress and _these_ shoes in _this_ condition?"

"If you don't want to take the car, I don't see that we have another choice."

"Uh, we could have taken the limo with the others if you didn't have to make like the ninety-year- old that you are and sit there and polish your shoes for half-an-hour."

Steve just gave a lazy smile in response, shrugging like he didn't have anything to say for himself, and Tony sighed and rolled his eyes and said, "Fine, whatever. I guess we don't have a choice."

Steve frowned and went to probably say something about Tony _always_ having a choice, but Tony ignored him and instead put a hand to his belly and said, "Look, if you could behave yourself tonight, I'd really appreciate it. Just…go to sleep or something, OK? Try not to kick me too much, maybe get your fat head _off_ my fucking bladder."

Steve arched an eyebrow at him.

"Not you," Tony said and rolled his eyes. "Your child."

"I notice he's always _my_ child when he annoys you."

Tony hoped it didn't show how much it hurt to hear Steve use masculine pronouns so easily when talking about the rambunctious little parasite growing inside of him.

"Yeah, well," he said breezy, carefree, as he took Steve's offered arm and followed him out of the room and over to the stairs, " _clearly_ he takes after you."

Just like another firecracker he used to know.

They went down to the garage to grab the Audi, and Steve, ever the gentleman, helped him into the passenger seat — Tony putting up only a token attempt to get behind the wheel — and he sat and fumbled with his seatbelt as Steve closed the door then went around to the driver's side.

"You know," Steve said, casual, off-handed, as he stuck the fob in the ignition and shut his own door. "I suppose we don't _have_ to go to this gala. Maybe we could just, you know, have our own night on the town."

He started the car and set his hands on the wheel as he looked at Tony, and Tony suddenly realized the son-of-a-bitch was dead serious.

"Wait," he said, the dashboard lights glowing in the dim of the basement garage, "seriously?"

Steve shrugged, attempting to play it off but Tony saw the glint of deviousness in his blue-green irises.

"Standing offer," he replied, and Tony turned slightly to face him better.

"Wait, so if I said, yeah, sure, fuck the gala, you'd just say, OK, and we could—"

"Do whatever you wanted," Steve finished for him. "Go to a show. Go to a movie. Go to a diner. Crash a wedding."

"Actually, that last one sounds like fun."

"Well, you never know, there could be one going on in the next ballroom over."

Tony opened his mouth to say, _Fuck the gala! Let's go crash a society wedding!_ but the words died on his lips.

"No," he replied, none-too-happy about it. "We can't. The others would kill us. And I don't mean figuratively. They would _literally_ kill us."

Steve nodded, clearly not the answer he wanted going by the slightly disappointed look on his face, and he cleared his throat and said, "Well, what if we showed our faces for five minutes and then ran off to do our own thing?"

"OK, _that_ sounds a little more feasible."

Steve nodded again, this time seemingly sated by the answer, and without putting on his seat belt — _They didn't have seat belts back in my day_ — he pulled out of the spot and swung the car around to the garage doors, JARVIS opening them on the approach.

It was only a few blocks difference between the Tower and the hotel the Foundation was holding the gala at, but the traffic in Midtown was especially busy that evening, and hitting the right cross streets to make the turn onto Park took almost half-an-hour in and of itself. Not that Tony minded. It was less time he had under the watchful gaze of prying eyes and more time to spend with Steve, who was a little too fast-and-easy with the preset switch on the steering wheel for the radio. He perked up a little when he hit on the '40s station, switching up the volume as Tony read the screen on the dashboard and saw it was Artie Shaw's version of 'All the Things You Are.' Steve tapped out the rhythm on the steering wheel and hummed out the tune, and he glanced over at Tony, and once Tony had met his eye, he winked at him before he turned his attention back to the road and crept through an intersection, the light above them burning green as the taillights ahead of them glowed red.

Tony just smiled, something warm and fuzzy coursing through his veins, and he relaxed in his seat, staring at Steve's profile as he was wont to do when Steve drove, and he had just started to rub a hand over his belly when the song changed, and Steve let it play for all of five seconds before he said, " _Jesus!_ " and quickly switched over to the next preset.

Tony sat up some, frowning at Steve's sudden change in demeanor. "What?"

"Hmm?"

"What's wrong with that song?"

Steve gave a curt shake of his head. "Don't like it."

"What was it?"

"Nothing. Just a stupid, _stupid_ song."

With Steve watching the traffic, Tony reached out and pressed the button on the dashboard to go back to the other preset, and Steve groaned audibly as the sound of the previous song blared out of the speakers.

"'Mairzy Doats'?" Tony said as he read the screen, the innocuous little song still playing into the air.

"It was stupid in 1944, and it's still stupid in 2014," Steve muttered and switched the channel again.

Tony switched it back.

"Tony, come on."

"Maybe I like it?" Tony mused, practically tickled pink by the knowledge that Steve could hate something so innocuous as a _song_.

"Have you ever heard it before?" Steve asked with a glance to him.

He shrugged. "Not sure. Who knows? Maybe. It's just a song, Steve."

"Yeah? Well, it's a stupid one. Buck got it stuck in his head one time and kept humming it all through the mission we were on. I wasn't the only one that wanted to deck him by the end of it."

Tony's lips twitched into a bemused smile. "Did you just say you wanted to deck Barnes for humming a song?"

"Guy's my best pal. Doesn't mean he doesn't do stuff that makes me want to deck 'im sometimes. He'd say the same about me."

He shrugged. "Yeah, well, I guess Rhodey would say the same about me, too."

Steve glanced over at him. "No, he wouldn't."

"Yeah, no, I can kind of drive him up a wall."

But Steve shook his head some, his gaze focused on the slow-moving traffic ahead of him. "Maybe. But I don't think he'd ever want to deck you."

"Uh, you heard about our super-powered fistfight we had at my birthday party, right?"

Steve arched an eyebrow and shot a glance at him. "You mean when you thought you were dying?"

"I _was_ dying," he corrected. "And I may have imbibed a little too much."

"So, you went off the deep end."

He huffed. "Whatever. I guess— Sure, yeah, that's—"

"Buck would want to deck me over something stupid. Jim would never do that to you." And then, he gave Tony a pointed look and added, "He'd deck me before he ever even thought about decking you."

Tony just shrugged, not agreeing but not fighting it, either, and Steve changed the channel again and said, "If I went on-record with how much I hate that song, you think I could get it banished from existence?"

Tony just looked over at him, and Steve smiled a little stupidly and added, "Being Captain America's got to be good for something, right?"

"I think you've been spending _way_ too much time with me," Tony just said in reply.

The traffic was better on Park, but the procession line was a bit slow-going, and at one point, Steve turned to him and said, "Offer still stands."

"I know," he said and half-considered telling Steve to get out of the line and take them anywhere but there, especially since little James Anthony was not in the mood to relax that evening. But they'd already agreed to do this, and they'd agreed to do it _this way_ , and better now than at some point in the future that _wasn't_ under their control.

"I notice you didn't say 'no.'"

He took a deep inhale of breath to steel himself then shook his head. "No, we can't. Besides, we're almost there, and Nat and that bitchy woman put so much effort into making me look presentable, and _you_ look so delectable, I could eat you with a spoon, and I want to show you off to everyone there, so, no, we'll go — at least for a little while."

"What, like ten minutes?"

Tony heard a note of hope in his voice, and he reached over and patted Steve's leg. "I know how much you hate these things, but no, Captain. The people want to meet Captain America. They spent good, hard-earned— All right, they spent money on it. We've got to give them their money's worth."

Steve just gave him a flat, sour look in return, like he was humoring Tony but wasn't happy about the situation overall.

And that was when it came their turn in line.

Steve pulled up to the designated area then put the car into 'park.' He glanced over to Tony and said, "You ready?"

Tony took a breath and put a hand to the door handle as a valet approached his door.

"Ready as I'll ever be, I guess. I mean, I've been doing this shit my entire life. You think I'd be used to it."

"Body's a little different," Steve said as a valet approached his door. "Brace yourself."

The door opened, the chatter and murmur of the crowd breaking the quiet void, and there was the flash of photography as he stepped out of the car, aided by the valet. He squinted even through the rose tint of his glasses and fumbled for what to do for only a second before Steve was beside him, wearing a pair of aviators, his jaw set and his lips pursed. Tony took hold of Steve's offered arm, and they took exactly two steps forward before there was a camera and a microphone in their faces, and one of the news network's reporters was directing questions at Steve, saying, "Captain, it's such a pleasure to see you here at the Stark Foundation gala tonight. I see you've brought Miss Carbonell along as your date for the evening. Is it true you and Tony Stark have parted ways because of your affair with Miss Carbonell?"

"Nothing could be further from the truth," Steve said, more flashes going off around them. "Tony Stark and I are in a committed relationship with one another and have vowed to stand by each other through thick and thin, for better or worse, forever and ever."

And then, he smiled oh-so-slyly and turned to Tony. "Right, honey?"

Tony just smiled and shook his head, and he turned so his mouth was by Steve's ear, and he murmured, "No one's going to believe it."

"Well, we'll find out," Steve said as the reporter finally seemed to come back to herself.

"I'm— I'm sorry. Are you implying that Miss Carbonell is—"

"I'm not _implying_ anything," Steve said, and Tony read it for exactly what it was: the patented Steve Rogers Talking-His-Way-out-of-Shit-on-a-Technicality. Of course he wasn't _implying_ it. He was downright stating it as fact.

"But are you trying to suggest that Miss Carbonell is in fact—"

Steve just nodded his head toward the doors and said, "Oh, Tony and I going to be late. Nice talking with you," then expertly led Tony away from the reporter and over to the entrance, the various paparazzi shouting demands and questions at them.

Steve led Tony into the hotel, up the stairs and through the ornate lobby on the way to the grand ballroom, several people pausing their conversations to watch the couple pass by, and Tony snorted a laugh and said, "Fuck, I feel like Eliza Doolittle at the ball."

"Nah," Steve said and brushed his lips against Tony's temple. "You're much prettier."

They followed the flow of traffic into the ballroom, the grand room done up with large sprays of seasonal flowers, rose and azure lights that melded together for a soft purple glow, and a stardust effect lighting the ceiling. Steve just exhaled a light breath as he took in the array, pocketing his sunglasses with his free hand, and he shook his head a little and said, "This seems to defeat the purpose of raising money."

"You kidding, babe?" Tony said and pulled off his own sunglasses and handed them to Steve to stick in one of his free pockets. "Thousands of dollars a plate to see and be seen and maybe even get to meet an Avenger? Chicken feed to a lot of these vultures. Come on." He motioned to one end of the room. "I think I see Nat and Bruce over yonder."

He tugged a bit on Steve's arm, and Steve followed him over to the other side of the ballroom where Nat stood beside a table, a glass of champagne in her hand and looking so elegant and put- together in her red, strapless (and yet off-the-rack) gown that Tony knew she was going to make even Pepper look like a ragamuffin. Bruce stood beside her, looking uncomfortable in a slightly ill-fitting rumpled tux that had to have been rented at the last second.

"Oh, Brucie," he said with a shake of his head. "Looks like you could have used the patented Natasha Romanoff makeover." He motioned over himself. "This is what happens when you let Nat dress you."

"I wasn't the one putting tape on the girls," Natasha said and gave him a knowing look.

"Oh, yeah," he said and turned to Steve. "Incidentally, the designer that Pepper paid a fortune for kind of got to second base with me before."

Steve raised a semi-concerned eyebrow at him. "Is this something I need to do something about?"

"No," he replied with a shrug. "Just saying. She was kind of rough, and I've kind of been a little _sore_ lately, so it's not like I'm going to be falling asleep thinking about her tonight."

"But if she touched you in any way that you don't feel was—"

Tony put a hand to his chest to quiet him. "No, Steve, I don't feel like she violated me. She was more concerned with getting her dress to look right than she was with trying to grab a feel of the girls."

Steve's face went a little pinched at that, and Tony knew it was over the terminology for his breasts.

"Look," he said, "that's how we ladies refer to them now."

" _We ladies?"_ Bruce murmured to Natasha, who just shrugged.

"Sure," Tony said and looked over at him. "I could be a lady. I _am_ a lady." He smacked Steve in the chest. "Tell 'em I'm a lady, Steve."

Steve huffed out a breath and then said to Natasha and Bruce, "He's a lady."

"And a very good-looking one at that," Natasha said and raised her champagne glass to him.

He smiled and nodded his thanks to her then turned to Bruce and said, "Seriously, she could do wonders with you."

Bruce just looked him over then said, "Yeah, thanks, Tony, but I'm not sure I could pull off a black evening gown as well as you."

Tony preened a little at the second compliment in a row he'd received then asked, "This our table?"

Natasha just arched an eyebrow and took a sip of her champagne while Bruce looked at the card in his hand and said, "I don't know. Are you Table 1?"

Tony looked at him and said, with all the seriousness he could muster, "Uh, I'm Tony Stark. Well, I guess _legally_ Stark-Rogers."

"Evidently that means 'yes,'" Steve replied and pulled out a chair for Tony.

He sat down and set his clutch on the table, and he looked up at the other three that were still standing and said, "What? Was I not supposed to sit?"

"No, honey, you can sit," Steve said and leaned down to kiss the top of his head. "You want something to drink?" he added and nodded his head toward the bar.

"Yeah, a scotch."

Steve just put his hands on his shoulders and made like he was going to knead them, but Tony smacked them away and said, "No, no, that's taped, too."

"Seriously?" Steve asked with a laugh and tugged a little at the strap on his right shoulder like he was trying to see for himself.

Tony smacked his hand away. "I said, I am literally taped into this dress. Wasn't that why I had to have you help me go to the bathroom before?"

The words didn't even faze Natasha, but Bruce frowned, his mouth puckering some like he was confused and trying to think of exactly the wording he wanted to use before he said, "Uh, he had to help you go to the bathroom?"

"We're married, Brucie. There's no mystery left. You'll understand if you ever find someone to make an honest man out of you."

Bruce, mouth still a little puckered, turned to Natasha, who just reached out and patted his arm with the hand that wasn't holding a champagne glass, which was currently at her lips as she took a sip.

"Anyway," Tony said and glanced up at Steve. "Yes, I would like a scotch."

"Sorry," Steve said with a curt shake of his head. "No can do. How 'bout a 7-Up or a Sprite?"

"How 'bout a Coke?"

Steve hedged and, forgetting what Tony had just said, put his hands to his shoulders and squeezed them a bit, the effect making Tony jump a little bit as the material of the dress pulled against where it was taped to his skin from shoulder to breast.

"You already had that coffee this morning—" Steve started to say.

"Oh, my god, _tape_ , Steve! What did I tell you?"

"Sorry," Steve murmured and dropped his hands away.

"And there's barely any caffeine in that shit, anyway."

"Actually," Bruce said, "there's more than you might think—"

Tony glared daggers at him. "No one asked you for your opinion."

"Whoa!" Barton said and came into sight, his tux a much better fit than Bruce's was on him and a glass of something in his hand. "Catty Stark is with us tonight, I see."

Tony scowled at him but spied a rich, dark caramel color in his glass. "Is there alcohol in that?" he asked.

Barton snorted. "Of course," he said and took a sip. "How else are you supposed to survive these things?"

He didn't have to see Steve to know he was glaring at Barton for that. The way Barton oh-so-subtly shrunk away was all the confirmation he needed. Plus, he knew Steve, and he knew Steve's MO.

"How 'bout just a seltzer?" Steve suggested. "I'll have them put fruit in it."

"Yeah, all right," he muttered, and Steve patted his arm and then was off. "And a swizzle stick!" he called out as Steve made for the bar, raising his hand and giving him a thumb's up to signify that he heard him.

He huffed and sighed and sat back in his chair, and Barton sat down at the table with him and said, "Well, you look very pretty tonight, Stark."

"Thanks," he said, unsure if Barton was being sincere of if it was a setup of some kind. Barton just shrugged and took another sip of his drink. Huh, evidently, he was being sincere.

Three compliments, and not one comment about his breasts. This was verging on a record of some kind.

Natasha took the seat next to Barton while Bruce took the seat on Barton's other side. That left two seats on either side of Tony, one of which was Steve's and the other, if he was remembering Pepper's instructions the right way, was for Rhodey.

Behind him was Table 2, at which sat various pairs of Avengers and friends. There was Thor and Jane, and because Jane had attended that meant Darcy had to as well, and she'd brought…some guy. Hill was already sitting there, her gown a harvest gold kind of a color, a glass of something pinkish in her hand as she raised a curious eyebrow at something Thor was saying. Some nondescript guy was sitting next to her, looking equal parts awed and out-of-place — and maybe even a shade more uncomfortable than Bruce.

Tony shrugged and turned back to his table and saw Wilson and what looked to be his date for the night, Sharon Carter, were approaching. They greeted the denizens of Table 1, both looking resplendent in their chosen formal attire (really, it was only poor Bruce that needed some kind of help — even Hill's random date at least looked like he'd put some care into getting dressed). They exchanged some small talk with the other three sitting at the table before Sharon turned to Tony and said, "So, it's true."

Tony just raised an eyebrow at her, and she smiled a bit at him. He really didn't have anything against her except the fact that he was ninety-nine percent certain Natasha had tried to set her up with Steve right around the time he and Steve had started dating, and there was still a very small but vocal part of him that couldn't help but wonder if Steve would have been better off in that case. She cleaned up nicely, she was smart, she was tough, she was pretty, she seemed pleasant enough, and she was, as far as he understood it, a damned good agent.

God, she was fucking perfect for Steve. What the hell was he doing with _him?_

He blinked to clear his thoughts, and Wilson directed his attention to him and said, "I wasn't sure if you'd show after Nat said you weren't piling into the limo with us."

He rolled his eyes. "Are you kidding? I was all set to go, but _Steve_ had to polish his shoes— And wait, you people all left, like, a good half-hour before us. Why does it seem like you're just arriving?"

Sharon motioned behind her and said, "We've actually been at the bar for the past half-hour."

Tony motioned between them. "Together?"

They exchanged glances before they both shrugged and uttered some variation of sounds in the affirmative.

"Huh," he said but left it at that.

"So," Sharon said, her lips twitching in an amused smile, "Steve had to _polish his shoes_ , huh?"

Tony opened his mouth to reply in the affirmative when Wilson said, "Aw, _man!_ " and made a face at him. "Is that what you're calling it now?"

"What? Calling _what?_ He sat there with the fucking polish and a rag and worked at those damned things for a half-an-hour like he was some old-timey bootblack getting paid for it."

"Seriously?" Sam said, raising an eyebrow.

"He's a hundred," Tony muttered in reply. "Don't tell him I told you, but he also carries around a handkerchief. It's what people did back in his day. I guarantee you he's got one shoved into an inside pocket of his tux jacket."

"Well, he's a gentleman," Sharon said with an easy shrug. She then made a slight face and added, "A little _old-fashioned_ for my tastes, but still, a really nice guy."

"Wait," Tony said and put a hand up, "he's too _old-fashioned_ for you?"

"Uh oh," Wilson murmured, a little sing-song-y, "now you've done it. You upset the princess."

"Princess?" Sharon asked with a laugh, and she glanced to Tony good-naturedly and said, "What, do you turn into a pumpkin after midnight?"

"Haven't yet," he said then turned to Sam and said, "And fuck you, _queen_."

Wilson ignored him and said to Sharon, "Seriously, do not say anything bad about Cap's princess unless you want him to give you that guilt-inducing Stare of Disappointment."

"Ooh!" Sharon said, her eyes glittering. "I've heard about that look!"

Tony rolled his eyes, but Sharon looked down and smiled at him, warmly, almost like she was happy to hear that and said, "Got him wrapped around your finger, don't you?"

Again, Tony went to open his mouth to reply, but Wilson said, "He's gonna deny it, but we all know it's true. He could literally blow up the world, and Cap would find some way of excusing it while we all sat on our little floating space rock foraging for space worms or whatever would be left to eat."

"Honestly, Wilson, you just sound jealous."

"Yeah, no. I like Cap. He's a great guy. Totally trust him with everything I got. Don't think of him _that way_."

Tony just blinked at him. "Yeah, that sounds not true."

Wilson just rolled his eyes and shook his head, a small 'I can't believe I have to listen to this' smile on his face.

"Look, _clearly_ , I can't blame you. I mean, he's a hot piece of ass. _And_ he definitely knows his way around a person whether they got an innie or an outie."

Sharon gave him a tight smile. "More than I wanted to know," she said with a nod.

"Welcome to my world," Wilson told her.

"Again," Tony said airily, "you're just jealous. It's fine. I can't blame you. Steve's a hot piece of ass that knows his stuff. Actually, he does this thing with his tongue where he kind of flicks—"

Wilson put his hands up in surrender and squeezed his eyes shut.

"All right! OK! I'm jealous. Just please stop talking! That's not an image I need in my mind!"

Tony waited a moment — until Wilson had felt it safe to drop his hands and open his eyes — then added, "He's a bit of a biter, too. In fact, he's really into nipple—"

Wilson put his hands back up again. "I'm out!" he announced just as Rhodey finally appeared from nowhere, a drink in his hand and a well-tailored tux adorning his frame as he stood beside Wilson and said, "What's wrong?"

Tony opened his mouth to respond, but Wilson said, "Details about a sex life I really don't need to hear about."

Rhodey stared at him a moment, glanced to an innocent-looking Tony, then shook his head a little and turned and said, "Oh, hey, what was that Bruce?" before he took the open seat between Tony and Bruce and immediately began to weigh in on whatever discussion was going on with Bruce and Barton.

"That's OK, snicker doodle," Tony called out to him. "You've heard worse about me."

Rhodey turned immediately, almost like he was readying up for a fight of some kind, and he stuttered out a few non-responses before he turned back to whatever dumb shit Barton and Bruce were discussing.

"He loves me," Tony said with a shrug and glanced back up to Wilson, who was standing and shaking his head a little, but there was a tiny smile on his mouth.

"Look," he said, clearly not holding Tony's aborted attempts at discussing his sex life against him, "I like Cap. He's a great guy. Honest, dependable, trustworthy. But whatever _you two_ got going on—" He made a hand-wavy motion at Tony and the general direction Steve was probably in at that, "—I don't want any of that. That's your thing, not mine. I wish you luck and happiness, but—"

"No homo?" Tony finished for him.

Wilson breathed out a laugh then said, "Nah, honestly, you two—" He cut himself off a moment and glanced to the side like he was trying to think of exactly what he wanted to say. " _You two_ ," he reiterated, turning his attention back to Tony, "are like— I kinda get what that that goddess says about you two being 'soul mates' because you are, like, the only two people in the world that could put up with each other."

Tony blinked at him. "Uh, what?"

Wilson moistened his lips to buy himself some time to formulate another response then said, "You're both a pain-in-the-ass in your own unique way, and you're both kind of fucking neurotic in your own weird ways, and you…kind of balance that out with each other in a way that I don't think _anyone_ else in the world could manage."

Tony nodded a moment, mentally parsing his words, and he finally said, "So…we're so annoying we're the only two people that could put up with each other?"

"That's not what I said."

"That's kind of what you said," Sharon replied, and Tony smiled his thanks at her.

She smiled and winked at him in response then put a hand to Wilson's arm and said, "Come on. We should probably find our seats. I think they're going to serve dinner soon. We don't want to miss the speeches."

"That's not what you said in the limo. And, you know, I didn't really say that," Wilson said as she led him over to their table.

"Yeah, you kind of did," she replied before Tony directed his attention away from them and back to his own table. As soon as he had, there was a loud eruption of laughter at the other table, and Barton said, "Huh," and nodded his head toward the other table. "Sounds like that's the 'fun table' over there."

"Are you implying we can't be _fun?_ " Natasha asked and took a sip of her champagne.

"Well, we got a Jolly Green Giant that's not very 'jolly'—"

"Hey!" Bruce said with a frown.

"—a moody pregnant broad—"

Tony arched an eyebrow at him. "Keep it up, William Tell."

"—who also makes very current and biting pop culture references—"

"Fuck you, Barton."

"—and a grumpy, old man that'll bite my head off for saying anything less than reverential about the moody pregnant broad and probably threaten to throw me off the team for it."

"That one I'll give you," Rhodey said and took a sip of his drink.

"It's just a shame the formerly brainwashed assassin didn't want to come. Four times the miserable, four times the fun."

"He's actually not that miserable," Natasha murmured, her voice laced with traces of tenderness and knowing.

Again, Tony filed that away for future reference then said to Barton, "I don't think someone whose resting face looks like they're contemplating murder is in any position to talk about being miserable."

"Just look miserable, Stark. Doesn't meant that I am," he replied and took a sip. He glanced to the side and added, "Oh, good, the old man of the table is back."

Tony glanced up to see Steve arriving with a glass of something clear and carbonated for Tony and a glass of something dark caramel for himself. Tony took his drink and swirled the ice and the fruit around with the swizzle stick then took a sip of it and inwardly sighed at the taste of club soda and citrus juice just as Steve sat down and said, "What?" to Barton.

Barton, however, just turned his attention to Natasha and motioned to the other table, "They get Thor, and we get Captain Tight-ass."

"You're right," Tony said and sipped his drink through his swizzle stick. "It is a _very_ tight ass. You could bounce a fucking quarter off that thing. Literally. You can bounce a quarter off of it. I've done it."

" _Tony_ …" Steve murmured and hung his head. Tony just continued to sip his drink through his swizzle stick, but he reached over to pat Steve reassuringly on the back. Natasha looked at them in slight amusement, Rhodey shook his head, and Bruce made a face like he'd actually dared to picture that very thing and had horrified himself with the image.

Barton, however, just stared right at him and said, "It's a girl."

Tony groaned and sipped more of his drink. "Oh, my god," he said, the swizzle stick not leaving his lips. "Are we back to this? You're full of shit. It's not a girl. Do not pass 'Go.' Do not collect fifteen thousand dollars."

Barton just smiled like he knew something Tony didn't and took a sip of his drink. Whatever. Barton was just a fucking idiot.

"Did you bet him you would pay him fifteen thousand dollars if it turned out you were having a girl?"  Rhodey asked.

"Which," Tony said, swizzle stick still at his lips, "goes to show you how confident I am that I'm right and that asshole is not."

Rhodey shared a look with the rest of the table — save Steve, for some reason — then shook his head and picked up his drink.

Tony watched him do this then asked, seeming to know there was more there than met the eye, "I'm sorry, are you trying to imply I _shouldn't_ be so sure of myself?"

"I didn't say a word," Rhodey said with a laugh.

"Then what was that look?"

"What look?"

"That look you gave everyone else — except Steve, and don't think I didn't notice."

Rhodey made a few utterances before he set his drink down and said, "There was no _look_ , all right? I don't know what you thought you saw—"

"I saw you give a _look_ to the other people at the table, all of whom seem to think I shouldn't be so cocky about the fact that I'm _not_ having a girl."

"Yeah, you are," Barton said into his drink.

"Did anyone ask you?"

"You did, like, a week ago."

"Whatever," he muttered and sat back with a slight pout.

And that's when he felt it. Some weird jerky motion in his abdomen.

He sat up, alerted to the sensation, and as soon as he put a hand to his belly, Steve was in his space, putting his hand on top of Tony's and asking, "What's wrong?"

"It feels funny," he said, not sure how to describe what he was feeling.

"How?" Steve asked and slid his hand off Tony's to rest against his satin-and-gossamer covered belly.

"Like a jerky motion or something. Like—"

The rest of the table had gone on the alert as well, all leaning in and murmuring serious-sounding questions to him. All except Barton, who sat there with his glass of liquor in his hand and said, "Hiccups."

Steve glanced over. "What?"

"Kind of like an even, rhythmic sort of thing?" he asked. "Yeah, hiccups. Bank on it."

"How would you even know that?" Tony snapped as Steve pulled away from him and began to look something up on his phone.

"I know lots of things," he said with an easy shrug.

"This the sort of shit you learn flipping houses?"

He shrugged again, and Bruce turned to him and asked as though he was genuinely interested, "You flip houses?"

"Uh, yeah," Barton said, sounding just a shade unsure about what he was saying. "I fix up…old houses."

"Where?" Bruce asked. "Is it around here or…"

Bruce continued to ply Barton with actual, genuine questions about his supposed house-flipping, but Tony became distracted once Steve sighed a little in what sounded like relief and said "He's right. I mean, I think he's right," then turned to Tony. "You feel OK otherwise, right?"

"Honestly, I feel bloated and kind of achy and I've been having some pretty bad acid reflux lately, but other than that, yeah. I feel fine. Why?" And then it hit him what Steve had said before asking Tony if he was OK. " _Oh!_ " he whined. "He's not actually right, is he?"

Steve went to reply, but Barton put his glass to his lips again and said, after answering Bruce's question about proper stud placement, "Of course I'm right. I'm right about everything."

Yeah, he'd see about that.

It wasn't long after that that they were chowing down on appetizers and salads, Tony shoving food down his gullet because he was hungrier than he thought he'd ever been, and when the actual entrée arrived, he wolfed that down in record time as well — though he blamed that more on the pathetically small portion rather than his own insatiable appetite.

He had just finished scraping his plate when he saw Steve still had a good half of his entrée left, and figuring that marriage meant 'share and share alike' — plus the whole being _pregnant_ with the son-of-a-bitch's child — he reached over to his plate with his fork and attempted to scoop up whatever he could get before he got caught.

"What are you doing?" Steve asked, sounding both amused and annoyed.

"I'm hungry, Steve," he replied and scowled when he couldn't quite break off the bite he wanted with just his fork. He picked up Steve's knife and began to cut himself a portion.

"After everything you already ate?" Bruce asked, and Tony glanced up at him and stared daggers at him.

"Do I really have the remind this table—"

"Yeah, Tones, we know. We get it," Rhodey said. He then motioned to the small amount left on his plate and said, "Here, you want mine?"

Tony glanced over, cutlery still on Steve's plate, and said, "Why? You don't like it?"

"No," he said, resting a forearm on the table, "but I don't burn as many calories just sitting here as—"

"The lab experiment from the '40s?" Barton finished for him.

Rhodey clamped his mouth shut and shook his head with a quiet sigh, and while Steve gave Barton his patented 'flat' look, Tony arched an eyebrow at him and said, "Are you trying to get fired from the team so you can go 'flip your houses' full time?"

"No," he said with a laugh. "But isn't that the reason Cap's got such a gargantuan appetite?" He looked at Steve. "Chihuahua-sized you wasn't eating this much, was he?" He glanced to Natasha beside him and added, "Hey! I could go ask Barnes!"

"Buck wouldn't—" he started to say in reply but just shook his head and shut his mouth like it wasn't worth the effort, and Tony stuffed the bite of food in his mouth then went to cut himself off another.

"Sorry, Rhodes," Bruce said, amusement coloring his voice, "but I don't think it tastes as good coming from your plate as it does Steve's."

"I know you're trying to be funny," Tony said as he shoved another bite in his mouth and went for more. He chewed the bite some then said, "But it honest-to-god does taste better from Steve's plate. He and I had the same thing, and his tastes ten-times better than mine."

"Well, if _that_ ain't love…" Barton mused and threw back the rest of his drink. Natasha patted his arm.

"Just because you're old and crotchety and single and childless doesn't mean you have to rain on their parade," Natasha said, a hint of a tease in her voice.

"Yep, that's me," he said and set his glass down. "Old and crotchety and single and childless."

"Oh, don't be so down on yourself," Bruce said. "Maybe all you need is a personality transplant and the right man or woman is out there waiting for you."

Tony was already to the point of scraping Steve's plate when he said, "Yeah, but he's got a pretty nasty case of 'resting murder face.' I don't think there's anything they can do about that. Kind of a turn-off for man, woman, and beast."

He waited for Barton to say something, and when he didn't — and after he'd scraped up every last bit he could get from Steve's plate — he looked over at Barton, who just stared at him and said one simple word.

"Girl."

Tony groaned and pulled away from Steve's plate. "It's _not_ a girl."

Barton made what sounded like a 'contemplative' noise then said, "Famous last words."

Tony rolled his eyes and saw there was still a little bit left on Rhodey's plate. "Yeah?" he said and shoved his empty plate over beside Rhodey's then used his fork to pull what was left on Rhodey's plate onto his own. He pulled his plate back in front of him, and he cut into what he'd snagged for himself then shoved a bite in his mouth and said around it, "You have any _proof_ of this?"

Barton shrugged. "Told you. You've got tells. None of them are pinging 'boy.' If it would make you feel better, we can do the Drano test or the wedding ring test."

"What are those?" Rhodey asked, and Tony whined because what in the hell? Did _Rhodey_ actually believe him, too?

"Look, it doesn't matter what they are," Tony said. "They're bullshit, and anyone that believes them is clearly passing on low intelligence genes to their child."

He shoved the last bite of food in his mouth then went about scraping the plate, and everyone was quiet as he did so until Barton said, "So, did you ever agree on whether it should be 'Sarah Maria' or 'Maria Sarah'?"

"Well, actually—" Steve started to say, but Tony belched then said, "No, we didn't. You know why? Because we don't _need it_. It's not a girl. Stop banging that damned drum."

" _What_ if it were?" Bruce said, side-eyeing him, sounding a little hesitant.

Tony shifted his gaze over to him, and remembering that shit he'd pulled back when he'd taken blood — when he'd forced Tony to contemplate the idea that it _could be_ the one thing Tony had assured himself was never his, before he turned around and gave the little 'signal' to the rest of the crew that it wasn't that at all — he swallowed and schooled his face into something neutral if just the slightest bit chilly and said, "It's not. Trust me."

Bruce just shrugged some and turned his attention to his drink, and Natasha said, "You don't even have anything picked out just for fun?"

Steve and Tony exchanged glances before Tony just scowled and Steve shook his head gently. "No," Steve replied. "We don't see a need to."

"That's stupid," Barton said. "You guys aren't finding out for sure, you're stupid to think telling yourselves it's a boy is good enough to get you one. And what's wrong with having a girl? What's the problem? You're both so dead-set against it. Do you see something _inferior_ about having a daughter?"

Bruce was looking nervous and shaking his head, but Rhodey was the one that caught Barton's attention and shook his head some and made a slight hand motion for him to cool it.

So, after all this time, Rhodey remembered, too? At least Rhodey hadn't been a dick and needled him about it, though. Rhodey, at the least, remembered that it was something they were never to talk about.

"Fine," Barton said with a shrug. "But now I'm thinking you two are a couple of sexist pricks." He motioned at Natasha and said, "How do you feel about that, huh? Your own Captain thinks he's too good to have a daughter — that his sperm is too good to carry any inferior X chromosomes."

Natasha just gave him a flat 'you're an idiot' look and took a sip of her drink, and Steve said, "It's not that." When the eyes of the table were on him, he added, "It's just…easier…I think to have a boy— to raise a son."

"Well," Barton said with a contemplative shrug, "you're not wrong. That _is_ what they say."

The matter was dropped after that, and Tony tried to relax a little in his seat until he realized—

He whined.

"What?" Steve asked.

Tony pushed close to him. "I have to _pee_."

Steve nodded and, without a word of protest, pushed away from the table and got out of his seat. He dropped his napkin to the side of his plate then helped Tony out of his chair. Then, instead of leading Tony quietly and discreetly out of the ballroom, he instead went over to Natasha and said, "Did you get it?"

She nodded and reached into her small clutch, pulling out what looked like a keycard of some kind. She held it out to him and said, a hint of a smile on her lips, "Key to your room, Mr. Roth."

Steve took it and pocketed it then made his way back over to Tony, and like the gentleman that he was, he held out his arm for Tony to take. Tony, grasping his own small clutch in his hand, took his arm and said a suspicious, "What did you do?"

Steve just grinned and said, "You'll see," then said to the rest of the table, "We'll be right back."

He then weaved Tony around the other tables of guests, sidestepping the servers as they made their way out to the corridor and eventually to the elevator bank. Not one other soul was waiting for an elevator when they arrived, and Steve reached out and hit the 'up' button then stood back a step to wait, and Tony glanced up at him and said, "What is this?"

"It's an elevator bank," Steve replied without missing a beat.

"Yeah, you know what I'm talking about."

Steve winked at him. "It's a surprise," he replied as a car hit the bank and the doors slid open. Steve led him on then hit a button for a floor and pressed the 'door close' button before anyone else might step on with them.

"Oh, yeah, this doesn't look suspicious at all," Tony said as the doors slid closed. "You know what's going to be splashed over everything tomorrow, right? Captain America and his little slut spending the night at the Waldorf?"

Steve let out a sharp breath. "Tony, that's not—"

"You're right. 'Little' slut? Who am I kidding? Captain America's big, fat slut. _Jabba_ the Slut, you might say."

Steve shot a look at him as the car began the ascent. "Stop that. That's not—"

"True? No. Is it what they'll say? Count on it."

"I thought the whole point of this was to tell the world 'Natasha Carbonell' has been really been Tony Stark all along?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, but, really, is anyone going to believe it? We can say it however loudly or however much we want. Doesn't mean they'll believe it."

"Well, that's their problem. The public wants to know the truth, and we're telling them the truth. We can't force them to believe it."

Tony just sighed a little, and he leaned against Steve, resting his cheek against Steve's arm just below his shoulder. "This is a mess, isn't it? This whole thing. God, I should have just stayed holed up in the tower for nine months until this all blew over."

The elevator slowed to a stop, and as it dinged and opened its doors, Steve said, "Maybe that woulda worked if Esmeralda was still alive to change you back."

Oh. Right.

He glanced down at himself to take stock of the most prominent parts of himself that would be with him for the rest of his life before Steve tugged on his arm a little and led him off the elevator and into the hallway. He glanced at the doors surrounding them to get his bearings then led Tony down the hall and stopped in front of the requisite door. He slid the card in to unlock the door then pushed it open to reveal the vestibule of the small suite, the lights already burning.

"Steven?" he asked as Steve led them in then closed the door behind them.

"Hmm?"

He watched as Steve set the card down on the small table in the vestibule then went into the adjacent living room, also already burning lights. As Tony followed him into the living room, Steve unbuttoned his tux jacket and tossed it over the back of one of the chairs then turned back to him and said, "Said you needed to pee, right?"

He followed Steve into the bedroom, and that was where he saw two suitcases set by the foot of the king-size bed.

"Steven?" he asked again as Steve went over to the bathroom and switched the light on.

"Yeah?"

"What's going on?"

Steve stepped back out of the bathroom, slight grimace on his face as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Well," he said, blowing out a breath and dropping his hand, "I don't know. I thought it might be kind of nice for a change? Just for tonight if you don't like it. I mean, I didn't even take you on a honeymoon, and I know this doesn't exactly make up for that, but… I don't know. If you don't want to stay, we don't—"

He shut Steve up by grabbing him by his shirt front and hauling him in for a kiss.

When they finally broke apart, Steve's lips were red and wet, and his eyes were just a smidge glazed, and he watched as Steve licked his lips and swallowed, Steve's eyes skirting all over his face as he said, "So, um, is it OK?"

"Yes, it's OK," he said, "It's very OK," he said, his vision blurring a little, and Steve chuckled and reached up to brush his thumbs just under Tony's eyes.

"Well, don't _cry_ over it. And you've stayed in fancier places than this. I know it's not much, but I have a few dollars to my name, and I thought—"

"It's fine," he said, shaking his head slightly and cutting off Steve's self-deprecating explanation. "It's perfect. It's wonderful— And what do you mean a few dollars to you name? You're my husband. What's mine is yours."

Steve made a face. "Well, not— Not _really_. I mean, that's your money. I didn't do anything to earn that."

"Mmm… Is this my hint to keep my grubby mitts off that payout you got from the government for leaving you in an iceberg for seventy years?"

" _No_ , but that— I said, I have a few dollars to my name. I can…treat my fella to a night out, I guess. I said, I know it's not much, and I know you've been to fancier places and done fancier things—"

"Yeah," Tony said quickly. "On my dime. You know how many people have ever treated me to anything? One. His name is 'Jim,' and I'm about to name my first child after him. Other than that? Yeah, not really."

Steve still had that look on his face like he wasn't sure he'd done well. "So…it's OK?" he asked again.

Tony stared at him a moment, wondering how he could ever doubt himself, then exhaled a slight breath and said, "Yes, babe. It's OK. You did good, old man."

The last of the hesitance left Steve's face, and he nodded his head toward the bathroom door. "Come on. Didn't you say you had to pee?"

~*~

By the time they got back down to the ballroom, the speeches were winding down (Tony had made sure to take as much time as possible upstairs in the suite so that they didn't have to hear the speeches, plus, he'd needed to test the bed out to make sure it would be adequate for sleeping… and possibly other stuff…that night). Dessert was being served, and Tony sat down without complaint and helped himself to the delectable chocolate offering sitting in front of him. There was also a small cup of black coffee sitting to the right of the plate, and Tony pounced before anyone could tell him 'no,' putting the cup to his lips and taking as much of a gulp of the steaming hot beverage as he could muster — no sugar, no cream, just delicious, black, savory…

He pulled the cup from his lips and glared at it, smacking his lips as he tried to figure out why it was so… _bad_.

"Oh, yeah," Rhodey said as he evidently watched him glare at the small bit of porcelain, "I asked them to give you decaf."

Tony shifted his gaze from the cup to the traitor sitting beside him. " _Why?_ " he asked as though Rhodey had just committed the utmost betrayal of him.

"Because. I know you don't want to hear it, Tones, but someone in _your condition_ shouldn't have a lot of caffeine."

Tony stared at him a moment longer then said, "I'm not sure I want to name my child after you any longer."

Rhodey rolled his eyes and went back to his dessert, and Steve murmured a quiet and knowing, " _Tony_ ," beside him.

" _What?_ "

"You know," Rhodey said, digging into his slice of chocolate heaven, "would it kill you to say 'thank you for looking out for me' once in your life?"

" _Decaf_ coffee, sugar smack. _Decaf!_ That's not— That's not even _real_ coffee!"

Rhodey rolled his eyes and dropped his fork down on his plate, and Tony winced a moment like he thought Rhodey was finally, after all these years, going to deck him for something stupid, but Rhodey just grabbed his own cup of coffee and switched it out for Tony's, saying, "There.

Happy?"

" _Yeah?_ " Happy called from the next table over.

Tony and Rhodey glanced back to see Happy looking at them expectantly, like he was awaiting information for their most-pressing issue, and Tony and Rhodey exchanged glances before Rhodey said, "Nothing, man. Sorry. I was just asking Tony if he was happy because I switched out his shitty coffee for my better one."

"Oh," Happy said then turned back to his dessert, and Tony and Rhodey exchanged another look before Rhodey said, "He's a little uptight tonight."

"Why?"

Rhodey shook his head slightly and went back to his dessert, and Tony followed suit. "Not hap— _pleased_ with the security detail that's here. Guess there's been some issues with it."

"Anything we need to be concerned about?" Steve asked, and it surprised Tony that he hadn't said one word about the coffee.

"Nah, I don't think so. Just regular party crashers. Think the only ulterior motive any of them might have is getting some prime pictures to sell to various websites."

"Yeah, well," Tony said, scraping his plate of the last few morsels of chocolate. "That was the whole point of this exercise, wasn't it?"

"How did you eat that that fast?" Rhodey asked in disbelief.

Tony licked off the tines of the fork to get as much of the chocolate goodness as he could. "Uh," he said, pulling the fork away from his mouth but not setting it down, "I'm pregnant, and not only am I pregnant, but I'm pregnant with _this guy's_ kid." He jerked a thumb at Steve. "I never stood a chance."

And at that, he leaned over to Steve's plate and began to eat his dessert as well, Steve sitting back and allowing him because he was a good husband like that.

"Yeah, but Tony," Bruce said, nosing his way into the conversation for some stupid reason, "you don't want to put _too much_ weight on."

Tony just answered by throwing him the middle finger with his left hand as he shoved a bite of chocolate into his mouth with his right.

"Or, you could flip me off," Bruce said and put his hands up in surrender.

"When you get pregnant with a super soldier's spawn that has the appetite of that fucking super soldier, then we'll talk about weight gain, all right?" he asked, scraping up the last of the chocolate on Steve's plate.

"Uh, hey, Tones?" Rhodey said, sounding slightly hesitant.

"What?"

"I know you were kind of horrified by that photo they got of you at Shake Shack, so maybe you might want to set your fork down now."

"Why?" he snapped and glanced over at Rhodey but then turned to see where Rhodey was looking and saw what was presumably one of the paid photographers for the event meandering through the tables and snapping photos where he saw fit.

"Shit," he muttered and dropped his fork, and he went to just scrub his mouth off with his napkin when he remembered he was wearing makeup, and so he grabbed the little travel mirror Natasha had given to him with the words, _Comes in handier than you'd think_ , out of his clutch and shoved it at Steve, saying, "Here hold this," and then grabbed the tube of lipstick out of the clutch as well.

"Jeez, Tones," Rhodey mused beside him, "you're…really going all out with this, aren't you?" Tony just ran the color stick over his bottom lip and then his top before he pressed his lips together to even out the color.

"What? Making myself look good?" he asked as he capped the lipstick. "Honestly, these stringently-delineated gender roles society forces on us are such a fucking pain in the ass. I actually _like_ makeup, sugar plum. It's fun to play with, it makes me look good, and it makes me feel good about myself. And seriously—" he added as he grabbed his clutch to shove the lipstick and the mirror back into it, "—man bags need to be a thing, all right? Like, seriously, you don't have to just shove everything into your pockets, _plus_ , you can carry even more stuff that you need but you don't ever have on you because you don't have any way of carrying it. I was going to make man bags a thing when I got changed back, but since that's evidently not happening, you guys have to pick up the slack for me." He glanced to Steve and said, "Seriously, Captain America goes around town with a man bag? Sales would go through the roof."

"I don't need a—"

"Well, you're going to need a diaper bag," Rhodey said, and as Steve made a face, Tony said, "That's not the same thing. Like at all."

"It's a bag to carry a bunch of crap in," Rhodey said, nonplussed by their responses. "By the way, photographer? Your seven o'clock."

Tony's eyes went wide for a fraction of a second before he turned to Steve and said, "Shit, how do I look? OK? Abysmal? Do I need to touch anything up? Do I have food on my face? How does my cleavage look? Do I look even? Did I spill any food on me? Are the earrings hanging the right way? What about—"

Steve, still sitting back in his chair, reached out a hand and pressed his index finger to Tony's lips, holding his jaw with his thumb and the rest of his fingers. Once Tony had gone sufficiently quiet for a second, he schooled his face into its sternest and most serious pose and said, "You look fine."

Tony puckered his lips and pressed a kiss to the pad of Steve's finger, catching a flash out of the corner of his eye just as he did so. He turned in the direction it had come from, Steve's hand still on his face, but the photographer had already turned and was moving over to another table at that point.

"Great," Tony said, Steve's finger still over his lips, "hopefully that one doesn't look as shitty as the last one."

"Nah," Rhodey said, swirling his glass some to get the watered-down remnants of liquor and ice to slosh around a bit, "I think that one might have looked kind of cute. You were looking kind of indignant, Steve was kind of smiling — kind of the way you usually look at each other. I mean, no one's gonna put two-and-two together about who you really are, but at least it still looks cute."

Steve dropped his hand away, and Tony turned to Rhodey. "So, you're saying we look 'cute' together?"

Rhodey just shook his head a little. "I never said you didn't," he said as the band came back from the break they'd taken and started up another old standard.

Tony stared at him a moment then leaned in and pressed a kiss against his cheek. "I knew you supported me, snuggle bunny."

Rhodey glanced over at Steve a moment then turned back to Tony, "Next to Pep, he's the only one I haven't lain awake at night hoping you'd come to your senses about and drop 'em like a rock."

Tony glanced back at Steve. "That's as ringing an endorsement as you're ever going to get from him."

Steve just smiled a little and reached out and rubbed his back, and Rhodey chuckled a little and said, "No, I mean it. Everything we all say about how disgusting and pathetic you are, you two really are cute together, and you're good for each other. And you make each other happy. I think that's all anyone that cares about either of you could ever ask for."

Tony stared at Rhodey a moment, his vision going a bit blurry as he bit his lip to keep it from wobbling, and beside him, he heard Steve say, "Look at that. You got him crying."

Tony heard the teasing lilt in Steve's voice, but he still ignored it and snuffled once before he launched himself at Rhodey, throwing his arms around his shoulders and hugging him tight.

"Oh! Hey!" Rhodey said, jerking back a little before he set hesitant hands on his back. "Yeah. OK. We're doing this, huh? Oh. Wow," he said as he tightened his arms just a fraction. "This, uh, this feels weird. Have we done this since you got, uh…? I don't think we, uh…"

"You really like him?" Tony murmured to him, and Rhodey exhaled a breath.

"Yeah, Tones," he murmured in return, his tone colored with fondness. "I do."

Not that he'd ever _needed_ Rhodey's approval, and not that he'd ever really doubted that he'd had it — Rhodey had no problem telling him when he thought he'd gotten mixed up with someone that was just using him for his name or his money — but it did mean a lot to him to know his oldest friend  approved.

"Hey, he ever gives you any trouble, though, you let me know," Rhodey said before he released him from the hug.

Tony sniffled and nodded, dabbing at the corners of his eyes because — goddamn it — he was _crying_ over this. Crying! Christ, he couldn't wait until he had control over his emotions again!

He clenched his teeth to keep from embarrassing himself any more than he already had, and he swallowed and nodded just as he felt Steve put a light hand on his forearm.

"Hey," he said and nodded his head toward the dance floor. "Come on. Just one."

Tony blinked at him. "Uh? One _what?_ "

"Dance," Steve replied like it was obvious. Then he nudged his arm and said, "Come on," again. "Just like we're back home."

Tony stared at him a moment, and Steve shrugged like it was no big deal to him, but Tony knew he was full of shit because Steve was an old-fashioned sap with a romantic streak, and Steve had been romanticizing dancing from the moment he'd realized his dick was more than something to just piss and play with. The height of romance for Steve was dancing with his best fella, and so Tony inhaled a deep breath through his nose and said, "Yeah, all right. _One_ dance."

"S'all I ask," Steve said and stood from his seat. He reached down and helped Tony from his, and under watchful and prying eyes, Steve led him over to the dance floor crowded with couples swaying and laughing and chatting with each other. He pulled him over toward the bandstand, and he let go of him for a second and asked him to wait before he went over and got the bandleader's attention. The bandleader leaned down as Steve evidently asked him something and then nodded and made some motion with his hand.

Seemingly satisfied, Steve left the bandstand and rejoined Tony, smiling a little sheepishly like he was proud of what he'd done but at the same time nervous.

"What was that about?" Tony asked as the band went through the last few bars of the standard they'd been playing.

"Hmm?" Steve asked, the picture of faux innocence. He pulled Tony into his arms, taking a gentle hold of his hand as he put his other hand where Tony's waist had once been. "Oh, nothing. Just asked a question."

"About?"

"Hmm?" he asked again as the first few notes of the next song wafted through the air. "Nothing. Just…"

He trailed off without explanation, and he pulled Tony in a little tighter to sway with him. Tony, finding no means nor any desire to fight it, went with the motion, putting his other arm to Steve's shoulder and reaching up to press his check against Steve's.

It wasn't until halfway through the song that he suddenly realized what the oh-so-familiar tune was — that first song they'd ever danced to, before they'd been SteveandTony and had just been 'Steve' and 'Tony.'

He pulled away from Steve slightly, making Steve frown at him and open his mouth to ask what was wrong, but before Steve could formulate his thought, Tony said, "You goddamned sap."

Steve, caught out, didn't even try to hide it. He just smiled a little, his cheeks flushing just the slightest as he said, "I always wanted to do that. Ask the bandleader to play a song for me and my date to dance to."

Tony shook his head, marveling at the romantic, old-fashioned sap he'd gotten himself mixed up with, and said, "You can take the boy out of the '40s, huh?"

Steve shrugged, and Tony pressed close to him again and said, "Come on. Song's almost over. Don't want to waste a moment of it."

He kept his eyes open as he looked over Steve's shoulder, not missing the furtive glances and brief hand-waves in their direction. They were talking about them. Of course they were. Wasn't that the plan? But they were talking about them — Captain America and that gold-digging whore, Natasha Carbonell, as the so-called 'traditional media' knew him. #JabbatheSlut as the internet knew him.

He kind of wanted to lay the whole thing out in the open right then and there. Grab the microphone from the bandstand and make a general announcement not related to all the good works the donors' funds would support in the upcoming year. Would it shut people up? God, no! They were lucky if even a fraction of the people that heard the news that 'Natasha Carbonell' was really Tony Stark actually believed it.

But at least it would be out there, and it would be done and over with. There wouldn't be any of this trying to drum up interest — trying to get people talking, trying to make it so that when they finally did make their announcement, the world stopped to take notice.

Then again, all Steve had done was gone on some daytime talk show relatively unannounced to out himself to the public, and that had all but stopped the world on its axis.

Still, the idea was to play this off as casual — as normal and natural and something they weren't even thinking twice about. Getting Tony out in public as he was — as he would forever be now — not hiding it, not acting like they were ashamed of it, making small talk and such with what the public knew to be Tony Stark's comrades and compatriots — his friends, his _family_.

His family.

Surely, _his family_ would have shunned this woman if she really had been just a gold-digging whore out for Steve's money and fame — out to take advantage of some void left by the god- awful Tony Stark. Just what did Captain America see in that train wreck anyway? He could still remember the more cynical columnists and TV talking heads and radio morning show clowns setting up their countdown clocks to see how long it would be before Captain America came to his senses and dropped the dead weight that was Tony Stark on his ungrateful ass. They, of course, were having a field day with this news, half of them convinced Steve had finally dumped Tony for someone 'more fitting' for him while the other half thought Steve was so messed up by the ice that he didn't realize he'd gone from an alcoholic albatross to a 'stupid skank' (as one of the morning show assholes had called him; Steve had almost broken his tablet when he'd stumbled upon that).

Unless, of course, Tony Stark's 'family' had never cared much for him in the first place and was glad he was gone.

Holy shit, they'd look at it that way, wouldn't they? Not that Tony Stark's 'family' had accepted this mysterious woman so clearly she couldn't be all bad but—

But—

That they'd never liked Tony Stark to begin with, so what did it matter that this bitch was clearly dancing on the grave of his relationship with Captain America?

He nestled a little closer to Steve and closed his eyes. What did it matter? The public would believe whatever they wanted. They could and would get the truth out there. They would lay it out exactly as it was. Didn't mean the public had to believe it. Or accept it. But so long as they had done their part, Tony figured that was enough.

God, the names he would have to live with from now on. Those stupid and sexist epithets — the ones that got Steve all riled up and got his jaw to do that thing it did where you just knew he was grinding his teeth down to the gums. Jesus, the 'Merchant of Death' tag was easier to live with than that. At least there had been some truth to that. Once upon a time. A little while ago.

Maybe, on some level, it would always hold true.

The song ended, but Tony held fast to Steve, hand firm on his shoulder, cheek tight against his. Steve didn't even bother to ask if he wanted to stay out there for another song. He just started to sway with him again as the band launched into another standard, and he would have gladly stayed there if not for Pepper saying from behind him, "I'm sorry— Steve?"

Steve stopped swaying but didn't lessen his hold on Tony. "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry, and I know you probably don't want to do this, but there is this cute little old lady that claims to have met you backstage at Radio City in 1943, and it would absolutely make her day—"

She didn't get the rest of it out before Steve sighed, and Tony felt his shoulders drop some. "Seriously?" he asked, sounding resigned to his fate.

"I'm not saying this because she's a big donor — she's not — she's just a little old lady that wants to say 'hello' again to her idol. She has a picture and everything."

Steve was silent a moment before he nudged Tony away from him and said, "Do you mind?"

He did — of course he did. His hormones were raging. But he still gave a flat smile and shook his head some and said, "No. Go give the old lady a thrill."

"Thought my publicity days were over," he muttered before he turned his attention to Pepper and said, "Where is she?"

Pepper pointed over to a table across the way, and Tony looked over and spied an older, petite woman with a dyed perm and a pastel gown that was standing there leaning all of her miniscule amount of weight on a quad cane. She looked harmless enough, and so Tony patted Steve's arm and said, "Go get 'em, tiger."

He just shot Tony a _look_ , but Pepper piped in and said, "She really is an absolute doll of a woman, and she remembers you fondly."

Steve next shot a look at Pepper. "How much did her son donate?"

Pepper hesitated for only a second before she said, "That's not really important."

He gave her a slightly pained smile, but he then looked between them and said, "You're just trying to steal my date from me."

"I don't think anyone could ever steal Tony away from you."

"Not unless they want a fight on their hands," Tony replied.

Steve smiled a little and nodded then asked, "What did you say her name was?"

"Helen," Pepper replied, and Steve tried the name out silently on his tongue before he nodded again and took a deep breath then pulled himself away from the two and strode off to make dear, old Helen's day.

Tony watched him depart for a second before he turned to Pepper and said, "Rude."

"Tony, what do you think happens when the Avengers come to these events?" Pepper asked, exasperation sliding into her voice at that, though Tony couldn't understand how it could be directed at him seeing as this was the first time they'd even spoken tonight. Which totally sucked. He really had to make an effort to talk to Pepper more often.

"Yeah, well, corner him on the way to the john or something, not while I'm getting my dance."

Pepper shook her head some, but she smiled at him and said, "That dress looks amazing on you, by the way."

"Does it?" he asked and looked down at himself.

"Very," Pepper replied. "I mean, it looks like you were sewn into it—"

"I practically was. Also, this designer of yours may have the goods, but her bedside manner could use a little work."

Pepper blew out a breath and said, "Yeah, Stella's kind of—"

"A bitch?" Tony finished for her then grumbled as he had to step aside of a swaying couple.

"That's not what I was going to say," Pepper replied then took his arm and said, "Come on. Let's get off the dance floor."

She pulled him back over to the table she had been sitting at for dinner, and Tony dropped down into an empty chair with a tired and relieved 'oomph.' He glanced around and saw the rest of the table had vacated, and he frowned and said, "Where's the rest of them?" as he jerked a thumb at the empty table.

Pepper took the seat beside him. She glanced around and said, "Most of them are on the dance floor, it looks like. Happy's over with Rhodey and Bruce." She turned back to Tony, and she exhaled a breath and smiled and said, "So!"

He arched an eyebrow. "So?"

"I didn't even get to talk to you at your birthday much!" she said, sounding saddened by this but like she was trying to hide her disappointment. "How are you? Is it OK to remark about how big you've gotten?"

"Wait, are you calling me 'fat'? 'Cause Steve called me 'fat' a couple weeks ago."

Pepper just blinked at him, and she stuttered out a few non-word responses before she said, "I really don't think _Steve_ called you 'fat,' Tony."

"He said a walk from Midtown to SoHo would do wonders for me."

"Steve runs ten miles every morning before breakfast," Pepper reminded him. "I really think that's where that was probably coming from."

"Whatever," he muttered and sat back in the chair some. "So, are you calling me 'fat' or not?"

"You never used to be this sensitive about your appearance," she murmured, an odd smile on her face before she said, " _No_ , Tony. I'm not calling you _fat_. I just—" She reached out as though to put her hands to his belly, and she bit her lip a little and looked up at him to make sure it was OK to do so before she did.

He just sighed and shrugged. "Go ahead."

She reached out and put her hands to either side of his belly, and a wide, happy smile broke out over her exquisite face. "I can feel her moving… Wow! She—" She looked up and met Tony's eyes. "Does it hurt? I mean, she's really active, isn't she?"

" _She?_ " Tony asked with an arched eyebrow.

Pepper gave him an odd look. "Well… _yeah_. This is— Isn't this—?"

"Isn't this _what?_ "

Pepper continued to give him an odd look like _he_ was the one not quite making sense here. "Isn't this Olivia?"

Tony stared at her. "Why would you even think that?"

"Uh, I don't know," she said, hands still resting on his belly. "Maybe because she's kind of the last thing I remember about our relationship before we ended it."

He sighed and rolled his eyes and said, "It's not her."

"Are you sure? How do you—"

"Because Bruce inadvertently spilled the beans," he snapped. "It's a boy."

Pepper's face went soft and a little sad at that. "Oh, Tony," she said, breathing out his name in slight sorrow, "I'm so sorry."

He winced away from her just the slightest. "Why?"

Pepper glanced down at his belly. "Jim told me how attached you got to her."

"Hey, I didn't get _attached_ —"

Pepper looked up at him and arched an eyebrow herself. " _Tony_."

"I didn't get _attached!_ " he reiterated, practically spitting the words for emphasis. "I— She— I didn't have much of a _choice_ , all right? She was there. She was from another universe— _See?_ What did I tell you? She _was_ from an alternate universe."

Pepper just continued to give him that sad, remorseful look, and she moved her hands from his belly and reached out to take his hands in hers. She gave them a squeeze and murmured, "It's OK to be sad about it, you know."

"Not sad about anything," he said with a curt shake of his head.

" _Tony_."

"I'm not _sad_ about anything, all right? I'm not mad or sad or angry or— I'm _indifferent_ , all right? I just— I don't really care that much."

She just squeezed his hands again and said, "You keep telling yourself that."

He went to fight her on that, but before he could get a word in, she said, "So, I hear you've already got a name?"

"James Anthony," he replied and, for not the first time, he just didn't _feel_ like it was the right name. At all.

"That's a lot to live up to," she replied knowingly.

"Yeah, well," he said and shrugged. "It was kind of easy. Both wanted our best pals' names. Luckily for us, both of them are named 'James.' Flipped a coin for the middle name. I lost that one."

Pepper winced back in disbelief. "Wait, you _lost_ that one? How—?"

"I wanted 'Steven.' Steve wanted 'Anthony.'"

Pepper just smiled a little and nodded like it now made perfect sense to her. "I see." She considered this a little longer then said, "No girl's name?"

Tony shrugged. "What's the point? We don't need it."

"You know, Tony, Bruce _could_ be wrong."

He rolled his eyes and scoffed some. "He's not wrong."

"And you're sure about that?"

"Uh huh."

"Absolutely positive?"

"Yeah, why?"

She shrugged some herself. "No reason. Just… I thought Steve would want to have one picked out just in case. He's much more cautious about those sorts of things than you are."

"Yeah, well, they didn't have baby sex detectors back in his day. You kind of had to wait until they popped out before you knew what you were getting."

Pepper nodded like Tony had just made her point. "And I'm surprised Steve would put so much faith in that then."

Tony shrugged again. "What can I say?"

Pepper went quiet for a moment, and she squeezed his hands some more and said in a low voice, "David Welch is here, by the way."

Tony groaned and rolled his eyes, pulling his hands away from Pepper's grasp. "Are you kidding me? How? Why?"

"How?" Pepper asked. She reached out to the table and picked up what Tony suspected were the remnants of her drink. "Because he paid to get in. _Why?_ " She shrugged and shook her head some, as though that would suffice for an answer. Tony shook his head some to match her befuddlement before she added, "He _really_ hates you guys."

"Ya think?"

"Steve in particular," she said, almost marveling at the very idea of it. "I can't understand why. I mean, usually _you're_ the one that gets the hate—"

Tony just stared at her, tilting his head and blinking, his mouth stretching into a somewhat bemused smile.

"Well, to be fair, Captain America isn't the one the media has the problem with. Mostly."

"Yeah," Tony agreed, "except in this guy's case. I mean— Is he old enough? Did Steve run over his cat or something before the war?"

"I don't think he's that old," Pepper said.

"Well, clearly something happened that made this guy write article after article questioning the heroism of Captain America and whether or not he's really a 'hero' in the first place."

Pepper just shrugged, and Tony sighed.

"Don't tell Steve, all right? Hopefully, we can get through this night without rubbing elbows with him."

"With who?" Steve asked, sidling up to the table, a glass of something clear and fizzy in one hand and dark and fizzy in the other. Evidently, he'd finished schmoozing dear, old Helen for the night.

He sat down in the vacant chair next to Tony, and he handed Tony the clear one, and Tony kissed in his direction in thanks.

"David Welch," Pepper said.

"What did I _just_ tell you not to tell Steve?"

But Steve just glanced around and muttered, "Great. What the hell is he doing here?"

"I don't know," Pepper replied. "I'm not sure he's been to a foundation gala in five years. Why he would chose to come this year…"

She shrugged yet again and took a sip of her drink, and Steve scowled and said, "I don't like it. He had to know the team was going to be here—"

"He needs more ammunition for his pen," Tony said and sipped his beverage through the swizzle stick it came with.

Steve watched him a second, seeming to consider his words before he said, "Well, I wish he wouldn't use us."

Tony shrugged, and Pepper said, "I'm sorry Steve. You pay your dues, you get to attend. God knows what he'd print if we kept him off the guest list."

Steve got that sour look on his face like he knew Pepper was right but he just didn't want to admit it, and Tony turned to Steve and, swizzle stick to his lips, said, "So, did you have fun with Helen?"

Steve gave a slight nod and said, "She's a very sweet woman, and we had a very nice conversation." He went silent for a moment then added, "I think she grabbed my ass."

Tony, in the middle of sipping his drink, nearly spit it back into the glass, and Pepper said to Steve, "It always amazes me when men act confused like they _can't_ understand why women have these thoughts."

Steve gave a curt shake of his head. "I didn't say anything like that. I just said I think she grabbed my ass."

"Can you blame her?" Tony asked then pretended to shoot a glance down at Steve's very firm, tight ass, which was difficult to do seeing as he was sitting on it.

But Steve just glanced between them and said, "And what would you say if an older gentleman did that to either one of you?"

They both stared at him, and Steve's mouth quirked up some in a small little smirk. "I know she didn't mean to be offensive, but harassment's harassment any way you slice it."

Pepper stared at Steve a moment before she turned to Tony. "Did I just get schooled in sexual harassment by—"

"An antique?" Tony finished for her. "Yes. I'm not even sure the term 'sexual harassment' existed in his day — you know, back when it was totes cool to give your secretary a slap on the ass or beg sexual favors in exchange for climbing up the ladder."

Steve just shook his head and took a sip of his drink, but Tony turned to him and said, "Steve, I just thought of a new game we can play."

" _And_ this is where I leave you," Pepper said, good-naturedly but with a hint of desperation. She picked up her glass and stood up, telling them she'd catch up with them in a bit before she headed over to where Natasha was now talking with Sam and Sharon, who were being kind of handsy with each other.

Steve turned to him, a wry smile on his face, and he said, "Did you really have to chase her off like that?"

"She interrupted my dance. Incidentally, do I have to worry about you and dear, old Helen now?"

Steve barked out a laugh but said, "No. Very sweet lady, but no." He grinned at Tony and he reached out and snagged one of Tony's hands and gave it a squeeze. "I've already got everything I want right here."

Tony, through the twisting and thumping going on in his abdomen, smiled at Steve, a little teary and said, "Goddamn it!" and pulled his hand away from his drink to reach up and dab at the corners of his eyes. "Why do you always do this to me?"

"Not saying anything you don't deserve to hear," Steve said and pulled Tony's hand up to his mouth, pressing a kiss against the knuckles and brushing a thumb against his fingers.

It was a tender moment perfect for spoiling, which is exactly what happened when a voice that was only familiar from having heard it on television so many times said a slightly sneering, "Captain Rogers," from the periphery.

Steve inhaled a sharp breath through his nose, and he set his jaw and glanced up to make the acquaintance of the gray-haired man standing above them, a glass of champagne in his hand and an air of pretension stinking up the place. He had a sort of professorial look about him, educated but somehow having learned the wrong lessons from it or cynical enough to exploit the wrong things to the detriment of others from it.

And who in the hell wore and off-the-rack suit-and-sweater combo to a several-thousand-dollar-a- plate gala fundraiser? Bruce didn't count. He wasn't wearing a sweater.

"Welch," Steve said with a curt nod, defaulting to soldier etiquette.

He slid his hard brown gaze over to Tony, tilting his head in a somewhat sly quirk.

"And _Lady Liberty_ ," he said in that same sneering tone. "Or is it 'Miss United States'? Your defenders haven't been very consistent in their defense."

Tony 'humphed' a little and said, "Thought for sure you'd go with the other one."

Welch, that bastard, just sat down in the seat Pepper had previously vacated. "Oh, but I actually enjoy _Star Wars_."

He took a sip of champagne, and Steve said, "Yeah, not because it has anything to do with being horribly sexist or derogatory."

Welch shrugged. "To be honest, I'm not sure I find it either."

Tony glared at him a little. Of course he wouldn't. "Hey, great. Don't you have an old girlfriend to go beat up?"

"Those allegations were never proven," he said, dismissive of the entire notion.

Steve just stared at him. "You didn't say you didn't do it."

"I don't see that there's any need to," he replied airily. "She never claimed that I did. It was her friends — if you want to call them that — putting those thoughts in her head." He stared pointedly at Steve at this and added, "And her _father_ , that miserable old bastard."

Steve frowned at this, unsure why Welch was directing his disgust at him, and even Tony thought it was a bit odd but then remembered Welch hadn't made sense about anything since the early days of the Reagan administration. Even Howard hadn't thought much of him.

But Steve just ignored whatever the implications from that comment might have been and instead said, "What are you doing here?"

Welch motioned around him. "Supporting the cause. I've been a fixture at these Foundation galas for years—" He shot a look at Tony. "Isn't that right, Stark?"

Tony and Steve exchanged glances before they turned back to him, and Tony said, "Excuse me?"

He sipped his champagne a moment then said, "I'm sorry. Isn't that what you were stating down at Ella Greenburg's gallery a couple weeks ago? Shame it didn't get as much press as it should have."

"You believe it?" Steve asked.

He looked between them, and there was something almost predatory about his gaze as he said, "Should I not? Stranger things have happened as of late, and Lady Liberty here—" he nodded at Tony at that, "—was, from what I understand, very insistent on what she was saying being the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

"I don't remember seeing you there," Tony said, and Welch sniffed at him.

"Some people may have felt my presence _unwanted_ in light of certain falsehoods that, again, were never proven."

Steve looked at Tony for explanation as to what that meant, but Tony shrugged, not understanding what it meant himself.

"Still," he continued, "I don't find it to be anywhere near as outlandish as some might think. I do recall that day when aliens poured out of the sky, after all."

Tony stared at him a moment then turned to see Steve, jaw set and eyes hard as he glared at Welch. "What's your angle here? What's your gimmick? What are you looking for?"

Welch put his hands up all innocent-like. "I'm not looking for anything, Captain. You're not going to throw me out into the street again, are you?"

Steve quirked his head at him, and Tony frowned and turned to him and said, "What are you talking about?" He turned back to Steve. "You throw him out of someplace?"

He jerked his thumb at Welch at that, but Steve was just staring at the man, confusion reigning before he sat a little straighter and squared his ridiculously broad shoulders and said, "I've never laid one hand on you."

"Haven't you?" Welch muttered and took another sip of his champagne.

"No," Steve replied, his voice like ice.

"Hmph," Welch muttered and set his glass down once more. "I could have sworn."

Steve and Tony exchanged looks again, and Tony once more just shrugged at Steve's confusion before Steve turned back to him and again asked, "What do you want?"

He smiled at them, tight, like a slimy snake not to be trusted. "Not a thing. Just wanted to say 'hello' and hope there's no hard feelings—"

"You spend every other column demanding the government round us up and lock us up in the Raft," Steve said, his voice as sharp-edge as his face was steely.

"Well, I don't think it would be such a _bad_ thing if the government kept better control over you people."

Tony narrowed his eyes at him. "Isn't your side all for…drowning the government in a bathtub?"

"On certain wasteful things, yes, of course," Welch replied airily. "I think we can all agree that superpowered freaks should be kept under lock and key. Though—" He looked Tony over. "I know some people that would be very interested to get their hands on _you_."

He didn't have to be touching Steve to know he had stiffened at that remark.

"Quite the miracle there, aren't you, Mr. Stark? Or do you prefer 'Mrs. Rogers'?"

Tony just swallowed, and Steve said, "What do you know?"

Welch shrugged a little. "I don't reveal my sources. However, I can say that there are certain… _interested_ parties in our very own government that are more open to the idea that Iron Man got himself turned into a woman and impregnated by Captain America than you might think. The governments of the world have been trying to make more super soldiers since the very first one came off the assembly line. Most of them have been miserable failures. Your very own Doctor Banner can probably attest to that."

Tony went a little rigid at the mention of Bruce but didn't do anything otherwise.

"The mistake that was the Soviet Union had its Winter Soldier, or _James Barnes_ , as I'm sure you both know him, and you may be successful in getting him cleared of all the charges of those heinous crimes, but you'll never wash the blood off his hands."

"What's all this bullshit about?" Steve snapped, his patience clearly long gone.

Welch sat back a little. "Why, Captain! How unbefitting of your rank and standing."

"Cut the crap, Welch," Tony said. "What the hell are you trying to say here?"

Welch just smiled some more. "That you may have inadvertently found a way of giving your government exactly what it's been looking for since 1943."

Steve sat up straighter at that if it was even possible. "It's not a super soldier."

"Isn't it? Is it your child, isn't it, Captain?"

"Doesn't mean it's a super soldier."

"Doesn't mean it isn't," Welch countered. "And I don't think the government would mind too much the expense to find out which one of you is right, _especially_ if that means they turn out to be the 'right' ones in the end."

Steve gave a curt shake of his head. "There's no proof that it would even be—"

"There's no proof that it _isn't_. Are you listening to me? There are people within your own government that _don't care_ about that. They will gladly foot the expense to make that determination all on their own."

"What are you saying?" Tony asked. "They'd breed us?"

Welch hummed in thought then said, "Well, at least the Captain there," he said and nodded his head at Steve. "Until they can find a way of replicating the serum that made the Captain the perfect weapon that he is, they might as well _breed_ themselves some more of them."

"Like they stud prizewinners," Steve muttered.

"To a degree, yes."

Steve exhaled a breath and looked at Tony. "And what better place to do something like that than in a secluded supermax prison," he said then turned to Welch. "Is that why you've been beating that drum?"

He shook his head some and picked up his champagne flute again. "Good god, no. I don't want any more of you than there already are. But you're right. It would make a prime location for unethical human experimentation, wouldn't it?"

He raised his eyebrows and sipped the last of the champagne, and Tony stared at him and said, "I feel like you're trying to tell us something without actually telling us something."

He shrugged and set the glass down. "In case you haven't noticed — and I'm so disappointed in you if you haven't — I did refrain, in my last two columns, from calling for your imprisonment."

"Oh, well, pat yourself on the back," Tony muttered, but Steve heard something in that that Tony didn't, and he stared at Welch and said, "You have heard things then."

He shrugged some and rested a forearm on the table. "Light whispers, mostly, but they're getting louder. I hear Ms. Potts has scheduled a press conference for tomorrow. You wouldn't be involved in that in any way, would you? Possibly your attempt to lay all the ridiculous rumors to rest?"

Tony glanced at Steve. "At least he thinks the life support rumors are bullshit, too."

But Steve was focused on Welch, and he stared at him and said, "Why?"

Welch shrugged, but he pushed himself to his feet. "I would just…be careful if I were you. The craziest ones weren't Hydra at all."

He stood up, leaving his empty champagne glass on the table, and he made to turn, probably assuming his parting words were a proverbial 'mic drop' of some kind — if he even knew what a 'mic drop' was — but then stopped himself at the last second and turned right back around.

"Oh!" he said like he'd just remembered something. "I had lunch with Ty Stone a couple weeks ago," he said, and Tony sucked in a breath, something funny and slightly painful hitting him square in the chest at the mention of that name.

Ty. Tiberius Stone. Fuck, talk about the last name he ever wanted to hear mentioned again.

"He remembers you well," he added, a knowing tone lacing his voice. He gave Tony a curt smile then turned and left, and Tony stared after him for a moment, those old feelings of pain and humiliation coming back like he was twenty-years-old again, and he almost got lost in the heartaches of yesteryear when movement in the periphery caught his attention, and he turned, his gaze settling upon a much different tall hunk of man with fair hair and blue eyes.

"Ty Stone?" Steve — darling, wonderful Steve — said, sounding a little confused. "Isn't he the guy that owns all that media…stuff?"

"Yep," Tony said, hoping to god Steve wouldn't dwell on it for too long. God, he did not want to get into his past dealings with Ty tonight. That was definitely not a sort-of-honeymoon conversation to have.

"You know him?"

"I knew him a long time ago," he said, casual, not letting himself harken back to any of those memories of long ago. And before Steve could ask any more that might threaten to send Tony down a memory lane he _really_ didn't want to travel down, he quickly changed the subject and said, "Is it me or was he douchier than usual tonight?"

Steve sighed and sat back in his chair and rubbed a hand over his face. "That doesn't make any of what he said untrue," he said, and Tony took that as a good sign that he was done asking about Ty because Tony was totally done thinking about him.

He scoffed. "You don't really think the government would imprison us just to breed us, do you?"

Steve just looked at him, and Tony swallowed but knew he had to be the cocky, optimistic one here.

"You do know there's still such a thing as habeas corpus, right?"

"It's been suspended before," Steve said with a slight shake of his head.

"OK, but we're still doing the press conference tomorrow, right?"

Steve exhaled a heavy breath and looked at Tony. "I don't think we have much of a choice. The public deserves to know, and you deserve to not have to hide in the shadows anymore."

"Even if it means giving Hydra, AIM, our own fucking government, and god knows who else more reason to snatch us up and milk you for all the baby batter they can get out of you before using it on me and a number of other as-yet-to-be-determined volunteers?"

Steve sighed out another breath. "I think that's the chance we have to take. We've come this far. We owe it to everyone — including you. It just means we now have to be…extremely careful how we tread."

"Meaning?"

"We make sure the rule of law and the public are always at our backs. If we have both of those on our side, we should be safe — from whatever segments of the government might want to…use us for their own gain."

"How high up do you think it goes?"

Steve thought about this for a moment then said, "Who's the one that has it in for Bruce?"

"Ross?" Tony said, and Steve hummed his agreement. "You mean the current Secretary of State."

"I don't trust him any further than my ninety-pound asthmatic self could throw him."

"I don't think your ninety-pound asthmatic self could _lift_ him."

Steve just stared at him.

"I'm just saying— You think Ross is the one he's talking about?"

"I do," Steve said without question. "Welch is an ass, but he knows the right people — or the right people that would tell him this stuff. Ross tried to get more super soldiers. As I understand it, he ended up with a Hulk and an Abomination—"

"I think he's the poster child for 'failing up,'" Tony mused.

Steve just grunted a bit, none too amused by Tony's musing. "And they're the most dangerous ones. People like that don't give up after one catastrophic setback. They keep going—"

"Until they die."

"Or until they kill everyone else."

Tony sat there a moment, frowning, and the sultry, peppy standard coming from the bandstand finally wafted through the dour fog of the last several minutes. "Well," he finally said as he watched the couples swaying — couples like Thor and Jane and Pepper and Happy and what even looked like Bruce and Natasha. "This just sucked up the night."

Steve hummed his agreement but didn't say anything beyond that.

"I don't know about you, but I'm kinda not in a partying mood any longer."

Steve arched an eyebrow at him. "You want to get out of here?"

"Hmm…well, as I understand it, there is a suite upstairs with our names on it. Well, a fake name on it."

"Actually, Arnie was a friend of mine when I was a kid. Don't know what happened to him."

Steve got up from his chair then reached out and helped Tony from his. He took Tony's arm and linked it with his then began to lead him away from the soiree.

"Uh," Tony said and glanced back to eye up the gathering, "shouldn't we say 'goodbye'?"

"Why?" Steve asked earnestly as he weaved them through the crowd. "The only people that matter will know where to find us if they need us."

He led Tony out of the ballroom, and by the time they got to the elevator bank, they were blissfully alone. Steve hit the 'up' button, and as they stood there and waited, Tony pushed closer to Steve and nestled his head against his shoulder, closing his eyes as he forced himself to forget about the very real horrors that might await them at some further time.

He felt Steve brush his mouth against his forehead, and Steve murmured to him, "So, uh, are you up for anything, or, uh…"

Tony smiled but didn't open his eyes. "You're a filthy old man. You know that, right?"

"Well, I've been accused of not even giving my best fella a honeymoon, so…"

Tony hummed a bit, and as the elevator 'dinged' to announce its arrival, he said, "Maybe we could fool around a _little_ bit."

Steve did not hesitate in the least in pulling him onto the elevator and hitting the button for their floor.


	25. Chapter 25

* * *

" _…but what I think this shows is a very intimate moment caught between two people that are clearly in love— This isn't a photo op. This isn't staged. This is a private moment between these two where they thought they were away from the crowd, away from the press, away from the cameras—_ "

" _Well, clearly not away from_ all _of the cameras—_ "

" _Right. But it's clear that these are two people that thought they were alone and felt comfortable to let their guard down — to not have their 'public faces' on, so-to-speak, and instead of two strangers standing next to each other or — worse — some gold-digger and the guy she's duped, you've got two people that are clearly, happily in their own world. I don't see anything wrong with it. I think it's a very sweet moment._ "

" _What about the talk that this 'Natasha Carbonell,' as everyone's known her the past few months, doesn't exist and this is really Tony Stark?_ "

" _Oh, I think it's quite possible, to be honest. We're living in strange times here, and Captain Rogers is showing a comfort and an intimacy with this woman that he's only ever really shown with Tony Stark. This woman was also seen to be having intimate conversation with both Pepper Potts and Colonel James Rhodes, both of whom are very close personal friends of Tony Stark, and, from what people who attended have said, you know, this wasn't 'polite' public conversation. This was actual— They know each other. She's also kind of engrained herself with the rest of the Avengers, who, as we all know, are very— They're a tight-knit group. They don't just let anyone in. Also, I would argue this woman_ does _bear a striking resemblance to Tony Stark — I mean if Tony Stark was a woman. Captain Rogers actually referred to her as 'Tony' in front of the cameras, and from what I understand, other members of the Avengers' circle were overheard to refer to her as 'Tony' as well. I think it's very possible that they're on the level here. I think it's quite possible that Tony Stark was turned into a woman and is_ clearly _very pregnant, undoubtedly with—_ "

" _I'm sorry, can I cut in here for a minute—?_ "

Tony hummed as he shoved a bite of pancake into his mouth and savored the syrupy goodness, an array of breakfast foods spread before him. Beside him Steve, shed of the white bathrobe he'd pulled on to answer to door and not horrify (or entice) the person that had come to deliver their room service, sat in all his gorgeous, naked, alabaster glory as he scrolled through various news feeds and social media alerts on his tablet, a concerned look on his face and a slice of bacon halfway to his mouth.

Tony chewed the bite of pancake then pulled the platter of eggs and toast closer and dug into that. "I can't believe out of everything last night, the two of us standing in front of the elevators is what gets everybody into an uproar."

He motioned over to the TV at that, which was continuing to air images from the previous night's Foundation gala event alongside various talking heads and 'expert commentators' giving their two-cents' worth as they debated whether or not Tony Stark or Natasha Carbonell had been at the event last night and, no matter which one it was, just how cute were she and Captain America together?

Steve glanced up from his tablet and eyed the TV with unease, shoving the slice of bacon in his mouth as he did so.

"And, you have to admit, we really, _really_ do look good together."

Steve looked over at him then reached out and grabbed a slice of toast.

"You don't agree?"

Steve gave a curt shake of his head. "Didn't say that," he said and bit into the toast as he went back to his tablet.

Tony watched him a moment then frowned a little and said, "This isn't about what Asshole Welch said last night, is it?"

"Not entirely," he said, the tablet resting on his lap as he swiped through screens with one hand and fed himself with the other.

Tony groaned and sank back against the pillows some. " _Ste-eve!_ This is supposed to be our trial honeymoon!"

"Trial?" Steve asked and looked back at him.

Tony struggled to sit back up some and finally deigned to let Steve help him up, his big-ass belly weighing him down. "Look, this is so sweet and wonderful and thank you so much for it, but at the same time, twelve hours does not a honeymoon make. Think of this as a trial-run — you know, to see if we like it."

"You really need a 'trial run' to see if you like laying around in bed and stuffing your face all morning?"

"Well, when it involves my husband finding a fucking tablet more interesting than me, yeah, kinda."

Steve just gave him a slightly apologetic smile, and he leaned in and captured Tony's lips with his. It was chaste, not much heat, more sweet than anything, and Steve was the one to break it, sitting back and shoving the remainder of the toast in his mouth while the talking heads on TV continued to chatter in the background.

"Guess I should have picked a day we _weren't_ having a press conference to do this," he said and went back to scrolling through his tablet.

Tony shrugged and grabbed the pancakes again. "Yeah," he said and shoved a bite in his mouth. "Bu' wike uh shaid," he said through the mouthful, "twial wun."

"I guess," Steve said with a sigh and glanced up to the TV again. He frowned, his gaze squinting, and said, "Didn't you have dealings with Justin Hammer?"

Tony groaned and rolled his eyes. " _Why_ would you even bring up that giant boner-killer at a time like this?"

Steve motioned at the TV. "Because he's giving his opinion on this whole thing."

" _What?_ " Tony cried then turned to the TV to see a static image of a five-year-old stock photo of Justin Hammer with ON THE PHONE: JUSTIN HAMMER on the screen and Hammer's whiny, nasally, petulant voice coming through as loud and clear as a phone connection could be.

" _Look_ ," he was saying, " _I've known Anthony a long time. This sounds exactly like the kind of thing he's been known to get himself into. Is anybody really surprised by this? I mean, look at the sort of stuff he was pulling when he thought he was dying. Plus, he's been in love with Captain America since he was a kid. This is total wish fulfillment for him._ "

" _Are you saying this is something that he_ wanted?"

" _Kinda, yeah, maybe. Look, you look in a dictionary next to the term 'daddy issues,' there's no definition. It's just a picture of Tony Stark. Is it getting back at his dad? Is it some perverted, late-in-life 'love me daddy!' cry? I don't know. But, look, I don't think any of us could say we're surprised by_ —"

Hammer's obnoxious voice cut out as Tony turned the TV off, tossing the remote to the foot of the bed where it was far out of reach for him. He turned to Steve, who was looking at his actions in slight confusion and said, "Oh, sorry. Were you listening to that?"

Steve shook his head. "Not particularly."

Tony speared a sausage link and bit through half of it, and he chewed it then said, "I don't even understand how that waste of oxygen isn't still in a federal penitentiary," waving the fork with the remaining piece of sausage in the air as he did so. Steve watched the pattern — or lack thereof — of the fork then grabbed Tony's wrist and stilled it to pull the rest of the sausage off the fork with his teeth.

Tony started at the motion, horrified, then said, "Oh, you did not just finish my sausage."

Steve just grinned at him, chewing the bite before he swallowed then said, "Think I might have."

"On the list of stupid things you've done in your life, that probably tops the charts—"

Steve motioned before them. "Why do you think I ordered _four_ full breakfast platters?"

"That _really_ must have smarted in your penny-pinching ass."

Steve smiled some, and he reached out and grabbed a plate of eggs and said, "I remember, back when I was a kid and we didn't have much money, you'd scrape together the change to go see a matinee or something, and even during the Depression, the movies would be all about these wealthy people with these amazing apartments on Park Avenue and— I mean, you know it was just a Hollywood soundstage, but they were just so… I used to fantasize. Not that I ever actually thought it would happen to me, but I used to think about how swell it would be to lounge around in a place like that and not really worry about money. Get myself mixed up with some dizzy dame that was nuts about me—"

"Why did you look at _me_ at that?"

Steve chuckled a little and stabbed at an egg yolk with a slice of bacon. "Yeah," he said, "I guess the 'dame' part's only half-right."

"Uh, I was thinking more about the 'dizzy' part."

Steve just shot a sidelong smile at him and dunked the strip of bacon in the egg yolk before he shoved it in his mouth.

"That is not how you do that."

"Can do it however you want," Steve replied. "No rules—"

"There are _totally_ rules to follow—"

"The rules that you made up don't count—"

"Uh, they have been developed through _years_ of extensive research and application."

"I've been eating bacon and eggs since your old man was in _short pants_."

"I know that's supposed to be an insult, but I don't speak 'geriatric.'"

Steve stared at him a moment before he moved to set his plate and his tablet aside, and as Tony went to ask what he was doing, Steve turned back to him—

Then reached out and began to tickle the ever-loving fuck out of him.

Tony screeched as Steve went for all his weakest and most vulnerable spots — his ribs and under his arms and behind his knees. He squirmed and squealed and tried to fight him off, but his laughter betrayed him, and somehow, he found himself on his back against the spread of pillows, Steve over top of him, looming over him as he methodically hit every single one of Tony's weakened defenses.

" _Stop! Stop!_ " he was eventually able to gasp out through his laughter after he was able to catch his breath a moment. " _Stop it, you son-of-a-bitch! Goddamn it, no fair!_ "

"What's 'no fair'?" Steve asked but didn't let up on the tickles, moving down Tony's leg and grabbing his ankle to tickle the bottom of his foot.

" _Goddamn it, Steve! Stop it!_ " he cried, tears all but streaming down his face as he tried to shake Steve off his foot. " _I'm going to piss myself if you don't stop it!_ "

Steve stopped the tickles but didn't release his hold on Tony's ankle. "Seriously?"

Tony panted a few times to catch his breath, lying back against the pillows as he looked up at the ceiling and put his arms out on either side of him to brace him before he fought to push himself to a sitting position again. He struggled a bit, and Steve finally let go of his ankle and helped him to sit upright once more.

"Ugh," he said and tried to adjust himself to get into a comfortable sitting position again. God, were his joints supposed to ache this much? "Seriously," he said and brushed some crumbs from the sheets. "Laughing, sneezing, pretty much _anything_ that could in the very least put the slightest amount of pressure on my bladder. Yeah, sorry. Didn't mean to ruin the mystery for you."

Steve shook his head some. "Not worried about mystery. Maybe some fellas don't want to know about that, but I want to… I don't want to be ignorant of what's happening to you."

Tony hummed a little and said, "That's sweet. Well, if you want to know—" he put a hand to his belly, "—that bullshit you just pulled with the tickling woke up the little monster, so now I've got that to deal with. I've kind of been a little bloated lately? Which is probably because I'm kind of constipated. And my joints ache like a _bitch_ , especially in my hips. And my breasts, seriously, believe it or not, more comfortable to leave the bra _on_ anymore."

"Is that why you're sitting there like that?" Steve asked, motioning over Tony's general nakedness aside from the black bra.

"What? Did you suddenly think I'd gone modest as I sit here with this giant belly hanging out— Look!" he said and motioned to the strange lurching that was going on underneath it. "It moves."

Steve smiled some and reached out to set his hand on Tony's belly.

"You know, at least Pepper _asks_."

"I didn't know I had to," Steve said and rubbed his hand over the swell, poking back at what looked like an appendage of some kind poking out.

"It's the principle of the thing. Generally, you _ask_ before you slap your giant meat-hooks all over a pregnant person's stomach."

Steve just continued to rub, and Tony sucked in a breath and tried to tamp down that twinge of desire that always crept up whenever Steve touched him like that. They'd done enough the night before, thank you very much, and if Tony did anything like that this morning, chances are he'd be zonked out by the time the press conference rolled around that afternoon, and as Steve and the others had found out in the past, a pregnant Tony Stark woken from his afternoon nap was a _cranky_ Tony Stark.

"Pretty sure the father gets to do whatever he wants," Steve said.

"Within reason," Tony countered.

Steve just rubbed his belly some more then said, "You know, they said it's a good idea to talk to him."

" _They?_ Who's _they?_ And who's _him?_ "

Steve just dropped his head some, stilling his hand over the swell of Tony's abdomen. He sucked in a breath and picked his head back up and said, "Doctors. Those…self-help things online."

Tony rolled his eyes as Steve began to poke at his belly, watching as the little creature within reached to each prod and jab. "What have I told you about believing everything you read on the internet?"

"These are reputable sites, Tony."

"Whatever," he said and watched as Steve continued to play with his belly. "Seriously? Are you done yet?"

"Is it bothering you?" Steve asked without looking up.

"No, it's just weird. And annoying. You know what it's like having a head shoved into your bladder or what I can only imagine is a foot shoved into your rib? Or an arm shoved into your liver? Or something constantly drumming on your intestines?"

Steve glanced up at him. "I don't think that can _actually_ happen."

"Wanna bet? We could trade places. You wouldn't even last five minutes before you were begging to trade back."

Steve sucked in a breath then nodded. "You're right," he agreed. "I probably wouldn't be able to handle it as well as you. In fact, I know I wouldn't."

Tony nodded then said, "All right, now finish that with, 'Tony, you're my own personal god.'"

Steve exhaled a laugh and shook his head a little, but he crowded into Tony's space some, and he slid his hand off his abdomen to wrap an arm around his torso and nuzzled his face into his neck, murmuring out, "Tony, you're _mine_."

Tony melted into the touch, closing his eyes and relaxing as Steve nipped and sucked at the skin where his neck met his shoulder, one hand resting at his side while the other was firm against his back. Years ago, he might have stiffened at the very idea of belonging to someone — of being just a plaything or a possession — but it was different with Steve. It was always different with Steve. He didn't just feel like a possession with Steve or a plaything or someone to just build things or buy things or do things for Steve. Steve had a possessive streak a mile wide, sure, but Steve took very good care of those things that were his, the product, he was sure, of having grown up with scant few things to call his own. Steve was a slob with material things, but with the things that counted — the people and the family and friends he'd come to rely on these past couple years — Steve was nothing if not careful with them, understanding them to be fragile and able to be taken away from him in the blink of an eye. Steve did not put his faith or his trust in people easily — especially not after that whole thing with Hydra and the government — but Tony knew that once he did, it was very difficult to break that. Steve was loyal and dependable, and sure, perhaps a little too stubborn or self-righteous for his own good, but it was a stubbornness and a self- righteousness that Tony knew he could live with.

Because he knew through it all that that asshole Barton was right. He was Steve's princess. He had Steve wrapped around his finger, and whatever baby wanted, baby got. Maybe Steve idealized him or revered him too much — maybe he put him on too much of a pedestal — but he hoped that if there ever came a time that he suffered a fall from grace that Steve would still be standing there when the dust settled, ready, willing, and able to help him back up and brush the dirt off.

He was just starting to get into the teasing nips and grunts when Steve's phone began to ring, that obnoxious tune from that '60s 'Captain America' cartoon that he'd watched as a kid blaring into the previous silence of the room. Steve groaned into his neck but still pulled away to glance over to the table to check to see who or what it was.

"I can't believe you haven't changed that ring tone," Tony said as Steve picked up his phone to look at it.

"I have," Steve replied, hitting the button on the side to mute the sound. "Someone keeps changing it back."

He shot Tony a look, and Tony sniffed and said, "I can't even imagine who would do such a thing."

"Yeah, it's a complete mystery to me," he said before he swiped to answer the call and said, "Yeah?" as he put the phone to his ear.

Tony watched as he nodded and said, "Uh huh," his face going from concern to eye-rolling annoyance. "Seriously?" he asked and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "I thought this was important…I mean _actually_ important…Nope, not interrupting anything at all…Huh? No, but I'm thinking I may have to separate all of you…It's called being a 'responsible adult'…Probably not until at least tomorrow…Yeah, well, you'd better all be on your best behavior when I get back…If that's what it takes…I'm not— Fine, yep. Talk to you later."

He clicked off the call and shook his head before he tossed his phone onto the table and looked at Tony. "Are they our teammates, or are they our children?"

"I'm not really sure sometimes," Tony said and reached out to grab a cup of coffee. "Which one had which one in a headlock?"

Steve frowned and said, "Something about laser tag?"

"Oh," he said with a nod and sipped his coffee. "Yeah, Barton's pushing for a laser tag arena. Think he has Nat on his side. Probably Wilson. Barnes was probably an easy sell. Thor, I'm sure, has no clue what it is, but he's game for pretty much anything. Bruce, I'm sure, would like to, but he's afraid the Hulk might want to join in."

"Are you designing one?"

"Kinda. Sorta." He made a twirling motion with his hand. "It's on my agenda."

Steve nodded then said, "Yeah, well, I just had three people trying to explain the need for a laser tag arena to me."

Tony took another sip. "Why?" he asked as he pulled the cup away.

"Something about Mjolnir going into a wall?"

Tony groaned and rolled his eyes. "What are they even doing 'training' at this time of the morning?"

"I don't think they were," Steve replied. "But I'm pretty sure there's going to be a lot of broken glass and holes in walls when we get back."

Tony rolled his eyes again. "We're going to have to hire a babysitter for those idiots."

"Thought we already had one?"

"Who?"

"Maria."

"Who, Hill? Yeah, I think she'd be kind of insulted if she knew we were calling her the Avengers' babysitter."

"She's called herself that," Steve said and reached out to grab his tablet again. "She was kind of groaning about it at the time, but—"

He went back to scanning through whatever it was he was looking at, and Tony finished off his cup of coffee and cut himself another generous bite of pancakes. He shoved it in his mouth and chewed, and he watched as Steve swiped through screens and information then said, "Well, if nothing else, at least the general reaction to last night appears to be positive."

Tony swallowed and said, "And Jabba the Slut?"

"Seems to have been buried. A few remainders obviously that I don't think will ever completely go away."

"Hmm…yeah, I know what parts of the internet those people like to troll."

He stabbed another bite of pancakes and shoved them in his mouth, and Steve was quiet a moment as he scanned through whatever was on his tablet and said, "I was serious before."

Tony swallowed again and said, "About what?"

"Talking," Steve said, some of the strength going out of his voice and being replaced by what sounded like slight embarrassment.

"About?"

He shook his head some and said, " _To_."

"Who? That gang of idiots that lives with us?"

Steve just looked over at him, pointedly, his mouth quirked to the side. "The baby."

"Why?" he asked and cut a sausage link in half and shoved part of it in his mouth. "Can't talk back," he said around the bite of food.

"I was reading—"

Tony groaned and sat away from Steve, leaning over to the plate and spearing the other half of the sausage link. "How much will it take for you to forget how to read?"

" _I was reading_ ," Steve said, louder and more determined than previous, "and they all agree it's good to, you know, talk to the baby while it's, you know, still in the womb. So he gets to know our voices."

"Yeah, well, he hears my voice every day," Tony said and shoved the other half of the sausage link in his mouth.

"Cursing out the others and yelling at DUM-E doesn't count, Tony."

"Yeah, but it's still my voice," he said around the food. He chewed a few times and added, "S'not like we can have an actual _conversation_."

"We should try it."

"You should stop reading that shit."

"Tony, come on!" He turned back to his tablet. "They have all sorts of suggestions for things you can do—"

He stopped short as Tony grabbed the tablet out of his hand, and Tony snatched up another slice of bacon and began to crunch on that as he read through the list of suggestions.

" _Sing a song_. Yeah, no, I've heard your singing voice."

"It's not _that_ bad," Steve said, the words coming out in a slight pout.

" _Read a bedtime story_. Like an actual book or a _Once upon a time, there was a bunch of circus sideshow freaks that called themselves 'The Avengers_ '?"

"I'm sure either one would suffice."

" _Tell your baby how much you love him_. Oh, isn't that sweet?" He rolled his eyes. "You do know a fetus doesn't even have a concept of what 'love' is, right?"

"Are you just going to find a way to shoot down all of these suggestions?"

"Probably. These are ridiculously lame. I mean, I get I'm talking to the man that thought 'Lady Liberty' was a good counter to 'Jabba the Slut.'"

"It's trending," Steve said, smiling, proud of himself for mastering one piece of twenty-first century communication.

Tony stared at him, his expression flat. "It is not trending."

"It's— I know how to read. It's definitely trending."

"Because people feel sorry for you because of how lame it is," Tony muttered and went back to the list. " _Say good morning and good night to your baby_. Again, what's the point of that? The baby doesn't have any concept of time. It's floating around in a bubble of goo and gets fed through a tube in its stomach. Talk about a fucking charmed life."

Steve snatched the tablet away from him.

"I wasn't done with that."

"Yeah, you are," he said and set the tablet back on his lap. "You know, the suggestions really aren't half-bad."

"Yeah? I'm not sitting here and rubbing my bloated stomach and telling it how much I love it. That's just weird."

"Is that the attitude you're going to take after he's born?"

"To what? Him or my stomach? I'm not telling my stomach that I love it, Steve. I will tell my child that I love him. I will not tell my stomach that I love it."

"Yeah, but you're not telling it to your _stomach_. You're telling it to your child that just so happens to be inside your stomach at the moment."

"It's still _weird_ , Steve. Besides, I _do_ talk to him already."

"Saying 'Go the fuck to sleep' or 'Get your fucking head off my bladder' doesn't count, Tony."

"What? I really mean it. None of this sappy 'I wub wu' bullshit. I really mean it when I say please, for the love of god, go to sleep already."

Steve just sighed and shook his head a little.

"Oh, you think you'd be all soft, nurturing words and tender caresses if you were in my place?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, good, because we both know you'd be worse than I am, so expecting _me_ to be all tender and nurturing and _oh, you are so pwecious, I wub wu_ is totally hypocritical."

Steve stared at him a moment then said, "You really hate this whole thing, don't you?"

"I wouldn't say I _hate_ it."

"It kind of sounds like you hate it."

"I don't _hate_ it," he stressed again. "It's… It's weird, all right? And it's uncomfortable. And it takes a lot of getting used to. I'm still not used to it. Look, I'm sorry if I'm not acting the way all the articles online say I'm supposed to be acting. But I just… That's not me, all right? Rubbing my stomach and telling it how much I love it isn't me. Singing fucking lullabies isn't me. I'm still trying to come to terms with the fact that this is something that's been done to me that wasn't my choice and this is the way I'm going to be the rest of my life and— What? Wait, _what?_ "

He scowled a bit as Steve leaned in and wrapped big, strong arms around him, pulling him close and cradling him against his chest. Tony sighed and went with it, resting his head on Steve's shoulder and putting his arms around Steve's ridiculously narrow waist.

"This doesn't make it all magically better you know."

"I know," Steve said and cradled him close. He brushed his lips against Tony's head. "I'm proud of you, Tony. I'm so proud of you. And amazed by you. I couldn't do it, and just the fact that you are — and how well you are — that's nothing short of amazing."

Tony was quiet a moment, and he nestled a little closer and tightened his arms some and said, "So…would you say that you love me?"

"We're not back to that, are we?" Steve mused. "Yes, Tony, I love you. And I'm proud of you and amazed by you and don't ever want to imagine my life without you."

He tightened his embrace of Tony and brushed his lips against his hair, and Tony thought about the things that first Natasha and now JARVIS had said to him about Steve, and he wondered, for a brief and tortuous moment, if there was anything to it — if there was any truth to this notion that he was the only thing keeping Steve tethered to the modern day and that Steve would _not_ take it well if anything were to happen to him. He probably needed to talk to Steve himself about that — it wasn't the same as hearing it from Wilson or Nat or any of the others that may have tried to corner him about it. Steve could talk his way around them easy. Steve was much more open to laying out his vulnerabilities with Tony.

But that was a conversation for another day, and so he squawked out a breath and said, " _Argh! Can't breathe! Super soldier squashing me!_ " and lost himself in Steve's genial chuckles as he loosened his embrace and said, "Sorry. Sometimes I forget my own strength."

"Yeah, well," Tony said as he pulled away. "Was starting to think you were trying to get yourself a Tony pancake there."

Steve chuckled again, and he picked up Tony's hand and brought it to his mouth to give it a kiss. "Mmm… How much longer do we have?"

"Nat said she'd be here around noon. Not sure when Pep's showing up. Probably around then, too."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "We're doing it here?"

"What? In our bed like John and Yoko?"

Steve's face went pinched as he mouthed ' _John and Yoko?_ ' to himself.

"Although that sounds a lot easier and would definitely get us even more press coverage—" he heaved out a sigh, "—unfortunately, no. One of the rooms downstairs. Pep's already got it set up."

"I thought we were doing it back at the tower?"

"Eh," he said with a shrug. "A little too close to home for my comfort. I mean, would it be easier to get onto the elevator and go back up to the penthouse right afterward? Sure, but—"

"We have the room for another night."

Tony blinked at him. "We do?"

Steve smiled a little, sheepish but still seeming to be a bit proud of himself. "What? Did you think I was only going to treat my fella to one night at a fancy New York hotel?"

"OK, you have _got_ to stop thinking like that. You're not some poor schlub from Brooklyn anymore."

"What does that have to do with—?"

"Golly gee willikers, you're not from the farm! You didn't just fall off the turnip truck!"

Steve frowned. "Well, no, I lived in a tenement."

Tony rolled his eyes. "You know what I mean. Stop acting like New York is the 'big magical city' at the end of the yellow brick road."

Steve shook his head some. "It's not that. It's—"

"What?"

He sighed a little. "I…I've had to fight for everything I've ever gotten my whole life. Before I went into the army — well, really, I guess before I got that—"

"Giant windfall from the government for leaving you in the iceberg for seventy years?"

Steve stared at him, evidently unimpressed with his characterization of his prior experience.

"Anyway," Steve said, "before I— When I was younger, _this?_ " He motioned around them. "This would have been months upon months of saving for me — maybe even years. Making deliveries didn't exactly pay a whole hell of a lot."

"I thought you were a newspaper boy?"

Steve went quiet a moment, almost like he was embarrassed. "I delivered newspapers," he said after a beat of silence.

Tony hummed and said, "Yeah, guess that wouldn't really support a wife and kids, would it?"

Steve shrugged, a little glum. "Well, there was never any threat of that eventuality ever happening — not until I got all this, anyway," he muttered and motioned down at himself.

"Look," Tony said with a sigh, "I'm gonna level with you. The serum may have given you all _that_ —" he motioned over Steve's very fit and firm body that was just…cut…in all the right… places…and he just…wanted to run his hands all over his chest and…lick…his abdomen and—

He blinked and shook his head to clear his thoughts, and he squeezed his legs together some to quash what was starting to become a familiar tingle of arousal in areas he was still coming to terms with were 'his' now and forever.

"Anyway," he said, and Steve tilted his head a bit, looking for explanation for Tony's previous strange little actions, "the serum may have given you _that_ , but it didn't do anything for that personality of yours."

Steve arched an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Your personality. Kinda salty."

" _Salty?_ " he said with a laugh.

"Yeah. You're kind of…hard to take for people that don't know you?"

Steve sat back some, and the eyebrow arched higher if that was even possible.

"I'm _not_ saying I don't love you," Tony said and put a placating hand out to him. "I'm just saying that you can seem kind of…cranky or salty or self-righteous or too serious for your own good."

Steve stared at him a moment and said, "Well, why don't you just shoot me now and get it over with?"

Tony rolled his eyes. "You're missing my— The point is, yes, the serum gave you that rockin' bod, but the Steve Rogers that's underneath that rockin' bod is still the same, and he is a giant pain in the ass."

Steve stared at him some more. "I still don't understand the point you're trying to make."

Tony huffed out a breath. "That once you get past the firm, tight flesh that you just want to…sink your teeth into…the real Steve Rogers is still underneath and—"

"And he's a giant pain in the ass that no one can stand to be around."

"Did I say that?"

"I think that's kind of what you were going for."

"It wasn't. It's just— 'Cap' is the shell, but 'Steve Rogers' is the guy that really matters, and a lot of people wouldn't be able to get past that because they'd go to bed with 'Cap' and wake up with 'Steve' and—"

"And be disappointed."

Tony blinked at him. "Is this you getting me back for earlier with that stupid 'How to talk to your baby bump' bullshit?"

Steve just smiled, a little plaintive, and shook his head. "No," he said, "just… It's nothing I haven't thought about before." He went quiet a moment and shrugged a little. "Just didn't realize anyone else had ever thought about it."

Tony reached out and put a hand to Steve's face. "Look, I love you. You know I love you. I'm just—" He clammed up and shook his head. "Forget I said anything."

Steve nodded, but Tony felt he was still a bit…put out by Tony's admittedly _awful_ explanation, and so he scooted closer and put his arms around Steve and held close to him, and with his mouth by Steve's ear, he whispered, "You're mine, too, you know."

He didn't know if it had done the trick, but at least Steve didn't seem to be holding it against him if the way he put his arms around him after that was any indication.

They finished breakfast after that and lazed around a little more, and by that time it was approaching the noon hour, and with resigned sighs and grunts, they pulled themselves from the bed and clambered into the shower to freshen up, and it was as Tony was walking back into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around him just under his armpits and a towel tied up in his hair that Pepper and Natasha let themselves into the suite, barging into the living room with a garment bag and another smaller traveling bag stuffed to the gills.

"Uh," Tony said as he walked into the living room and watched them lay the garment bag over the couch, "security breach."

Natasha just snorted a laugh at him, and Rhodey called out from the hallway, "OK, they're not doing anything weird in there, are they?"

"Steve's wearing a gimp suit, and it looks like they're sacrificing a lamb," Natasha said drolly, and while Pepper just rolled her eyes, Rhodey called out from the hallway, "That's not funny."

Natasha shrugged, and Tony looked between her and Pepper and said, "Seriously, how did you even get in?"

Natasha raised an eyebrow, and that was when Steve, naked as the day he was born, came in from the bedroom, saying, "Have you seen my—"

He stopped short when he realized they weren't alone, and it was at that moment that Rhodey, for whatever reason, felt it safe to enter the room, and it was Rhodey who broke the silence and said, "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

Steve just stood there, hands clasped behind his back, wet hair slicked back from his forehead, and junk on display for everyone to see. He nodded first at Pepper then Natasha and finally Rhodey, saying to each, "Ms. Potts, Nat, Colonel," before he cleared his throat and turned around, making his way back into the bedroom, Natasha tilting her head as she watched him depart, nodding her approval at Steve's tight-as-fuck buns of justice as the bedroom door closed behind him.

Pepper, oh, dear, sweet Pepper, in a fit of curiosity befitting her inebriation at that club they'd gone to back in the spring, just said, "Does it _fit?_ " and looked at Tony for confirmation.

Rhodey was just shaking his head like he was rethinking his life's choices.

Tony, though, gave Pepper a _look_ and motioned over himself and said, "I think the answer to that question speaks for itself."

"Yeah, but it…" she said then trailed off, evidently as she tried to figure out just exactly how Tab A fit into Slot B.

"Look, can you give me, like, five minutes to get some underwear and a bra on? Not that I'm really all _that_ ashamed of myself, but poor Rhodey's going to bust a capillary—"

"I can handle seeing naked people, Tones. Just was not expecting that…full frontal…the moment I walked in the door," Rhodey said and took a seat on the chair. "How's this working, anyway? We all going out with you?"

He hummed and shrugged and put his hand up to where the one end of the towel was tucked in to keep it from falling down, holding it there so it didn't come undone. He watched as Pepper unzipped the garment bag and then pulled out the tasteful ensemble she'd chosen for the conference, shaking it out and holding it up and saying, "Will this do, Mr. Stark?"

Tony looked over the chic white eyelet wrap dress with the flouncy sleeves and the sheer but solid lining underneath. He arched an eyebrow at her and said, "White, really?"

Pepper frowned and looked at it. "Why? What's wrong with that?"

"Nothing, just, seems a little _virginal_ , don't you think?"

"I _don't_ think that's a problem anyone's going to have with you," Pepper said, and Tony arched his eyebrow a little higher.

"What was that, Miss Potts?"

Pepper just shook her head, and Natasha checked her watch and said, "We better get a move on if we're going to get down there by two-thirty."

"It's _not_ going to take two-and-a-half hours to make me look presentable."

Tony was right. It didn't take two-and-a-half hours. Between getting him back into the bedroom to put some underwear on, drying his hair, styling his hair, doing his makeup, and getting him into the dress and situated so that the tie sat just under his left breast like so (because of course that's the way all of these dresses worked — evidently it looked 'cute' or something) and the rest of the material draped over his belly the way it should have, it took exactly two hours and seventeen minutes.

Steve, of course, looked not just presentable but _delectable_ after ten minutes of barely any work whatsoever, and he spent the remaining time in the living room with Rhodey, the TV tuned to one of the 24-hour cable news stations that was alternating between talking about the upcoming midterms and Captain America's very pregnant date at the previous night's Foundation gala. Tony could hear it as he sat in the bedroom and let Pepper and Natasha play with him like a dress-up doll, even if he would rather be in the living room discussing it with Steve and Rhodey, who were trying to rationalize their way through how this press conference was even going to go.

That said, Tony was also too busy thinking about later tonight and whether he and Steve should have dinner downstairs in the restaurant or if they should just sit in bed in their nakedness once again and order in. He supposed it depended on how the conference went. If it went over well, they could probably chance going out. If it didn't, well, it would probably be best to lay low for a while, and maybe Steve still had some of that blueberry money left to splurge for a few more nights at the hotel.

When Natasha and Pepper had finally finished, and Tony was able to join the other two back in the living room, Rhodey looked down at his watch and said, "You sure you're ready, Tones? You have, like, thirteen minutes left."

Tony waved him off and said, "These things never start on time, anyway," then turned to Steve and asked, "Is it OK? How does it look? Should I have gone more 'professional'? I was trying to do 'cute' but 'fun' at the same time."

He turned around to model off the ensemble, and Steve nodded his approval and said, "It looks good. Very summery, actually. But still tasteful."

"It looks good on you, Tones," Rhodey said, nodding his approval. "Very—" He cut off and glanced from Steve to Tony and asked, "Is it OK to call you 'pretty'? I don't know what the—"

Tony just preened and called in the direction of the bedroom. "Rhodey thinks I'm pretty!"

"Yeah, great, you look gorgeous, Tony," Pepper said, striding out of the bedroom in her crisp, tailored ensemble, a chic-but-casual Natasha following right behind. She marched right over to Tony and took hold of his arm and said, "Come on. We should have been down there fifteen minutes ago."

"What— _ow!_ Did you get your hands replaced with vice grips or something?"

Pepper just pulled him into the hallway, and Tony called out, "Steve! She's kidnapping me, Steve! She's making me do work!"

Pepper led him over to the elevators, Natasha right behind them and Steve and Rhodey bringing up the rear. Tony did a headcount then looked at Pepper and said, "Where's your best guy?"

Pepper's lips twitched a little. "You know how Happy is when it comes to security."

"He doesn't live up to his name?" Tony mused.

Pepper smiled a little and said, "He thinks there's room for improvements," and stepped onto the elevator once it had arrived at the floor.

Tony followed her on, followed by Natasha, Rhodey, and Steve last, and together, they rode the elevator in silence down to the floor the conference was being held on. Tony watched the numbers drop, something in the pit of his stomach getting tighter the closer they came, and he swallowed down the bile that was threatening to rise in his throat, finding for the first time in many, many years that he was actually…nervous about what was going to happen. Because he didn't know what was going to happen, and unlike in the past, he kind of cared about what was going to happen. Because it wasn't just him anymore. It was Steve and the Avengers and, whether he wanted to admit it or not, the little acrobat that had gladly settled down for his afternoon nap (and Tony suddenly realized he wished _he_ could settle down for an afternoon nap, too). There was more to it than just him anymore, and it mattered how this conference played it. It mattered for the team and how effectively they could do their jobs, and it mattered for him and Steve and how much slander and libel would come from it and how much privacy they'd be entitled to from here on out.

The elevator came to a stop and 'dinged' to announce its arrival, and the doors slid open to reveal a more bustling corridor than they'd left behind. Tony slipped a pair of wire-rimmed, rose-tinted sunglasses over his eyes and schooled his face into something neutral as he followed Pepper and her fucking six-inch heels off the elevator and over to a small dressing area adjacent to the room where the press conference was being held. He recognized Pepper's PA, who came over with a notebook in her hand and gave Pepper a rundown of what had gone on while she'd been upstairs, and Rhodey nudged Tony's arm and nodded over to another corner of the room, further away from the doors that led into what could very well be Tony's doom.

Natasha stayed behind with Pepper and the PA, but Steve followed them over, and arms folded tight against his chest and hands tucked into his armpits, he looked around the setup and over to the doors to the conference and said, "You know, you really don't have to do it this way."

Tony took a breath and looked up at Steve, who was staring at him in a way that was meant to be comforting but actually looked a little squeamish on his part. He put a hand on Steve's forearm as though to calm the nerves that hadn't settled, and said, "Trust me, babe. This is my element. This is what I excel at, all right? I called a press conference as soon as I got back from Afghanistan and told the world I was shutting down the weapons manufacturing division of my company. I told the world I was Iron Man after one front-page incident. In both of those cases, I'd almost died right before that. Here? I know I complain, but this _really_ is a much more _boring_ situation than either of those others. I think I'll be OK."

Steve wasn't convinced, lips twisted into a scowl, face hard and jaw clenched, but he didn't say anything, just puckered his lips when prompted, and Tony went up on his toes to give him a kiss.

"Twenty minutes tops, babe. And then the world will know the truth, not just a bunch of people at an art gallery."

"Yeah," Steve said, sounding none-too-pleased about it.

"Do you have a better suggestion?"

Steve huffed out an exhale of breath and said a quiet and very reluctant, " _No_."

Tony patted his arm. "Didn't think so," he said, and Rhodey leaned in to Steve and said, "Not sure what that says about the 'man with the plan' that he doesn't have a plan."

"My plan was just to ignore it and hope for the best," Steve muttered.

"That is a _terrible_ plan," Rhodey said, and Steve, despite his misgivings over the situation, chuckled a little. "No, I'm serious. That is— Now you got me wondering if I'm really sure about this."

"About what?" Tony asked, and he watched as Steve and Rhodey exchanged slightly uneasy looks before Steve turned to Tony and said, "I, uh—" He dropped his arms, and he reached up and scratched at his forehead. It literally had taken until this moment for Tony to realize it was a nervous habit of his. "I, uh, asked Jim if he— when you— I—"

"You asked him to step in as Iron Man until I can squeeze into the suit again," Tony said, understanding what Steve either couldn't or was too embarrassed to get out.

Rhodey just scoffed and said a dismissive, " _Iron Man_. It's War Machine. It's the _War Machine_ ," he stressed.

"It's discount Iron Man," Tony countered.

"Uh, I am packin' more heat than—"

"Oh, wow, is that _Iron Man?_ Oh, no, never mind. It's just the Art Garfunkel of superheroes."

Rhodey stared at him a moment then said a succinct, "You're a jerk."

"He's nervous," Steve said, back to having his arms folded.

Rhodey nodded, conceding his agreement, and Tony sniffed and said, "Yeah, you know me so well, don't you?"

"Yeah," Rhodey agreed, "he does get like that when he's trying to put on a front."

Tony rolled his eyes, but Rhodey just reached out and put an arm around his shoulders and said, "Look, Tones, you're not alone. We'll all be out there right behind you — me and Steve and Pep and Nat. I mean, if we're all out there, they _have_ to know you're telling the truth, right? And, look, any of them start to ask anything nasty, all Steve has to do is give them that look that he has, and it'll shut them up quick."

"I'm still not even sure what this look _is_ ," Steve murmured, but Tony smiled a little plaintively at Rhodey and nodded, and Rhodey nodded back and gave his shoulders a little squeeze then said, "Wow, that is— I'm still not used to this being your—"

"Form?"

"Well, I was going to say 'frame,' but I guess 'form' works, too."

Tony hummed then said, "Well, better get used to it, honeydew, it's going to be with us for a long, long time."

Steve dropped his arms again, and he reached out and snagged a hold of Tony's hand and gave it a squeeze just as Natasha and Pepper approached, Natasha looking cool and collected while Pepper looked a little nervous — which meant she was probably completely rattled underneath but was doing everything she could not to show it.

"Well," she said as they met up, "last chance to back out."

Tony gave a slight shake of his head. "Don't want to back out."

She frowned a little. "Are you sure? Tony, we don't have to—"

"Yes, Pep," he said and put a hand on his arms to calm her, "one hundred percent. I know what I'm doing. I've dealt with these people before. You already told the Board, right? I'm not going to get a dozen angry phone calls when this is all over, am I?"

She exhaled a heavy breath. "I told the Board before the gala last night. Half of them didn't believe me. The other half were stunned into silence."

He nodded and checked his watch. "Good. We good? We ready?" he asked just as Hill stepped in from the press room.

"All set," she said. "You sure you want to do this?"

He rolled his eyes. "Why does everyone keep asking me that? Do you really think that just because I have tits and a vagina I suddenly forgot how to make decisions for myself?"

"Tony, it's not that," Steve started to say, completely sincere.

"I know, babe," he said. "Not right now, though, OK? I've got a world to go rock."

He turned just as Steve sucked in a breath to probably say something to that, and he followed Hill out into the press room, Rhodey, Pepper, Natasha, and Steve following behind. There was a crescendo of murmurs that began at one end of the crowded room and echoed into the other as the audience members recognized the woman now stepping up to the podium, Hill, Pepper, Rhodey, Natasha, and Steve standing just behind him, and several of them got up to try and get a better look. Several flashes went off, the red lights of TV cameras glowing in the back of the room, and Tony motioned for everyone to be seated and to be quiet, and once the murmurs had gone down, and with his friends and family gathered behind him, Tony cleared his throat and said, "Uh, so, I guess you're all wondering what I'm doing here. I'm sure you were expecting to get some news on Tony Stark after all these months, and here I am instead. But the thing is—"

He looked out over the amassed crowd of journos and photogs, the journos with their recording devices at the ready and the photogs snapping pictures left and right. He purposely avoided looking to the cameras in the back and instead thought about how he'd stood and looked out at a similar crowd at the start of his superhero career, when Obie — fucking Obie — had gone off the deep end and tried to kill him once and for all. He thought about how he stood up there as Tony Stark and proclaimed to the world that he was Iron Man, and he couldn't help but think that if it hadn't been for Iron Man, he wouldn't have been there at that very moment poised to tell the world that the woman — the _pregnant woman_ — they saw standing before them was actually the man that had spent the better part of several decades charming his way into their headlines and bylines. Because without Iron Man, Nick Fury would never have drafted him to fill out the ranks of the Avengers' roster, and without that, there probably would have been no means for him to end up with Steve.

He tweaked a smile, and in the same casual and flat tone he'd once told the world he was Iron Man, he said, "I am Tony Stark."

But unlike last time when the entire crowd erupted in a roar of confusion, this time, you could hear a pin drop. He blinked and startled at the reaction, at the way the journos before him sort of looked at each other like they weren't sure if this was a joke or not, and he glanced back at the others a moment to see if they were noticing what he noticed, several assorted looks of concern and confusion staring back at him.

"Um, I'm sorry," someone said, and Tony turned back to see it was someone sitting in the front row. "Are you trying to tell us that—"

"I'm Tony Stark," he reiterated, almost annoyed that this proclamation hadn't gotten him the uproar the last one had.

"Tony Stark?" the same journo said. " _The_ Tony Stark? You're _actually_ Tony Stark?"

Tony tapped the microphone. "Uh, is this thing on?" he asked, only to be rewarded with a little bit of feedback. "Yes, I'm Tony Stark."

"But Tony Stark is a man," another one said.

"Well, at the moment, he physically is not. I mean, I might still think of myself as a man. I don't know. It's kind of hard to really— But physically, yeah, _not_ male."

One lone flash went off while the assembled crowd looked at each other again, and Tony huffed a little and rolled his eyes.

"It's _long_ past April first, so no, this isn't some elaborate joke. I _am_ Tony Stark. I mean, yeah, I look like this, but I _am_ Tony Stark. There _is_ no Natasha Carbonell. That was a name I made up when we were trying to keep this, as someone of my husband's generation might say, on the Q.T."

He could _feel_ Steve rolling his eyes at that.

"But for reasons kind of out of our control, we weren't able to keep that just between us, and so here I am having this nice chat with all you fine folks."

There was another cloud of silence that hung over the crowd before, at once, everyone began talking and shouting at him, and above the din, he was able to make out one shouting to him, " _How?_ "

He motioned for everyone to calm down, and once they had, he said, "Long story short, I got mixed up with an ancient, cosmic goddess, and, well, got turned into a woman."

Several people called out for him, and he pointed to one in the middle and said, "Yeah?"

"Mister— _Ms._ Stark? Who's the father?"

Tony just glared at him. "I'm ashamed for you that you even feel the need to ask that." He pointed to someone two rows behind him. "You."

"How long have you been like this?"

"Since November— _Well_ , like this? Like this body full-time? Since January. I mean, there was that week back in November, which is how this—" he patted his belly, "—happened." He pointed to someone towards the front. "You."

"Can you confirm Captain Rogers is the father?"

He rolled his eyes. "What is it with you people and trying to—? Yes, it's his. Of course it's his. We've kind've been exclusive for, like, two years now. In fact, if you people were doing your actual jobs, you would have already known there's a marriage license on file for us."

Several people began talking at once, demanding his attention, and he pointed to one in the front row. "You. Go."

"When did you get married?"

"I should make you go and find that yourself. It's a matter of public record. But April. Do I remember the date? No, of course not. That's why I got married. Steve remembers that stuff, not me." He pointed to one in the middle toward the far wall. "You."

"Assuming this isn't all a big joke, what does this say for the relative safety of the world when aliens from other worlds can just come here and perform sex-transformations on us?"

Tony tried not to laugh. "OK, interesting way of saying that. Look, let me just say that the person that did this is…no longer around. There's no chance of this happening to anyone else." He pointed to someone else in the front row. "You."

"Do you think it's fair that you and Captain Rogers, two men in a same-sex relationship, should be so easily allowed to have your own biological children when most other same-sex couples that wish to have families either have to adopt or find a surrogate?"

"Easy? Really? Look, I don't have a _choice_ with this. Part of the spell. I couldn't get rid of this if I wanted to — not without killing myself. It's some weird, messed-up thing that I really don't want to think too much about. And it's not like we sought her out, OK? We didn't just say, 'Hey, Thor. We want to have our own kid. Know anyone that could perform some witchy voodoo on us?' She sought us out. It's her thing. She's dead now, so, there's no one left to turn me back."

"Does this mean you're in that body permanently?" someone called out, and Tony exhaled a breath.

"Yeah," he said after a beat. "I guess it does."

"How has this affected your relationship with Captain Rogers?"

Tony just shot a bemused little smile at the person that had shouted that to him. "I want to say none of your business, but you'll take that to mean there's trouble in paradise, which there could be nothing further from the truth. Has it changed my relationship with Steve? Yeah. I mean, I'd be lying if I said everything between us was exactly the same as it was before. I'm _physically_ a different person. I'm the same 'me' deep down, but physically, yeah, I went from having a dick to a clit, and that's a hell of a change. But Steve and I, we…" He grinned, unable to help himself. "We make it work."

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

Tony swallowed down the sudden burst of disappointment at that.

"Honestly, I don't know," he said, which wasn't _technically_ a lie because no one had actually told him to his face that it was a boy. "Like most first-time parents, we decided not to find out. But, I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't admit we're both hoping for a boy."

Well, Steve was, at any rate. But so far as Steve knew, he was, too.

"How far along are you?"

Tony went to open his mouth to respond, but he blanked at the last moment on the answer and, instead, glanced back to Steve, who just shot him a look that could only be read as _Really?_ before he gave only the slightest roll of his eyes and surreptitiously held up seven fingers.

"Uh, seven months," he said, breezily, after he'd turned back to the microphone.

"Is it _twins?_ " someone called out, and Tony paused a moment and stared in the direction of the shout, understanding it to be exactly what it was: a slight against how large he'd gotten.

Good god, he was having a super soldier's baby. What did any of them expect?

"No," he said, casual, playing off the slight smarting the words gave him. "Only saw one on the ultrasound, unless the other one was hiding."

"Does this change your standing with the Avengers?"

"My place in the hierarchy? Yeah, not if my husband knows what's good for him."

There was assorted laughter at that remark.

"I mean, I'm still co-leader. I'm still second-in-command. I just don't — or _can't_ — go out like I had been."

He pointed to another reporter.

"Colonel Rhodes has, on occasion, filled in for Iron Man. Do you see that becoming permanent?"

Tony glanced back and made a motion as though to ask if Rhodey wanted to answer that question himself, but Rhodey put a hand up and shook his head slightly as though to reply no, he was totally cool with Tony answering for him.

He turned back around.

"Colonel Rhodes has a freestanding offer to join the Avengers any time he wants. Rhodey's an Air Force guy through-and-through, though, you know? Not sure anything we can offer him will get him to quit that."

He glanced back and grinned at Rhodey, who smiled a little and shook his head in response.

Overall, it was a relatively benign affair. Maybe too many were too shocked by what had just transpired or maybe they just didn't believe it, but there was nothing that altered the fabric of reality. He had several more questions shouted at him, and he answered them all with his trademark charm and wit. He even got the assorted journos and photogs to chuckle a few more times.

When it was over and they all had stepped back behind the curtain to assess the situation, he smiled up at Steve and said, "See? Was that so bad?"

Steve just put his hands on his shoulders and said, "I just wish it didn't have to happen."

Tony hummed in thought then turned to Pepper and Hill. "How's the media treating us?"

"Shock," Hill said. "A little bit of worry. Disbelief. No one really seems to know what to make of it, but they're starting to put all the pieces together. I think you being at the gala last night really helped sell this."

Her phone began to buzz, and she pulled it out and checked the readout. "And so it begins," she muttered and answered it, "Hill," before taking off to another corner of the room, and Tony turned to Pepper.

"How's it going for you?"

She checked her phone. "So far, so good." She turned to them and said, "Why don't you go back upstairs and let us deal with this?"

Tony yawned, exhaustion suddenly hitting him like a ton of bricks, but he brushed it off and said, "Uh, don't you have a company to run?"

"Yeah, well, the owner of that company that I run just came out on national live television and said he'd been turned into a woman and was pregnant with Captain America's child. Think answering for _that_ is going to tie up the rest of my afternoon." She nodded her head in the direction of the elevators they'd come from and added, "Go. Upstairs. Relax while you still can."

"Thanks," Steve said and took hold of Tony's elbow to lead him out.

"You know," Tony said as Steve led him over to the elevator, ducking out of the way of curious onlookers and bloggers that had escaped to post their world-exclusives, "we really should stick around to answer for ourselves."

"Pepper and Maria said they'd handle it," Steve said and hit the button for the elevator then reached up and began to work Tony's shoulders.

Tony hummed in contentment and said, "Remind me to buy them their own island nations for them to rule over like the magnificent queens that they are."

Steve chuckled. "Rhodey and Natasha are helping, too. Think they'd all prefer something more practical."

"Mmm… I could buy them a presidential election. Just don't know who would run as president and who would run as vice pres."

He stepped onto the elevator when it opened its doors, and Steve hit the button for the floor they were staying on.

"Rhodey could be Secretary of State. Natasha could head up the CIA. I think Hill would have to settle for vice. Pep would settle for no less than Commander-in-Chief."

"I don't think you can buy a presidential election, Tony. Besides, there isn't another one of those for a couple years."

Tony arched an eyebrow at him. "You want to bet?"

Steve just sighed out a breath. "Please don't buy off a presidential election just to prove a point to me."

"OK, fine," he said and yawned a little, deciding not to fight the exhaustion as much now that he and Steve were back to having their 'alone' time. "But only because you asked nicely."


	26. Chapter 26

* * *

Life went on.

Seriously, though, contrary to what Tony thought would happen, the world didn't stop spinning or explode or die out simply because some pregnant woman had come out on live television insisting she was really Tony Stark.

Oh, there was the usual media blather about it and whether it was true or not and what this meant for everything including the price of milk, and yes, now all sorts of people were coming out of the woodwork to say that they, too, had been 'experimented on by aliens,' but it didn't affect the Avengers to the degree that Tony thought it might. Except for the usual blowhards (and, now that he thought about it, all ones that happened to be employed by Ty fucking Stone's empire), no one was calling for a Senate investigation, no one was calling for them to be locked up (even David Welch had given up banging that particular drum — even if he questioned everything to their validity to their heroism to their style choices on a given day), and only the most reactionary of cable news networks was pushing hard on the 'Is Tony Stark really a _girl?_ ' question.

He was sure someone had tried to dig up some information about how he was really locked away in some facility, hooked up to machines that were keeping him alive — either because of a botched suicide attempt ( _seriously?!_ ) or a botched mission with the Avengers (actually…not entirely unlikely). But seeing as none existed, none could be found, and the media was left with nothing but to either speculate on that (which they still did, though with less ferocity as they once had) or drop it all together and focus solely on the Tony-Stark-was-turned-into-a-woman-and-is- now-pregnant-with-Captain-America's-child (which was increasingly the angle because, as it turned out, it allowed them to _really_ bring out the claws against Tony in ways they hadn't been able to previously).

He's been looking a little puffy lately — was he gaining too much weight? Was he suffering breakouts? Who had _ever_ thought that ensemble was fit for public consumption? He and Captain America were turned _away_ from each other in that one photo — trouble in paradise? The more weight you put on during pregnancy, the harder it is to take off afterward. He wasn't really going to _breastfeed_ , was he? Is it possible this was less the work of aliens and more the work of doctors performing the best sex-change operation yet? You know, Tony Stark makes a very attractive woman, but he should _smile_ more. He would look much prettier if he _smiled_ more.

"I'm not sure if it was better or worse when they thought I just was a gold-digging whore," Tony said one morning a few days after the press conference, after Steve and the other Avengers, half-dead from lack of food and lack of sleep, had just returned from a mission. As they gathered in the kitchen looking all shades of exhausted, leaning on each other and the island for support, Tony held his tablet in his hand as he read over some asshole political commentator's editorial on just how much _nicer_ it was to smile and how much prettier women — and thereby even girl!Tony Stark — were when they did so. He tsked a little and shook his head, the coffee carafe in hand as he went from Avenger to Avenger, pouring them each a cup of the good stuff.

"You know, I knew our media was degradingly sexist, but I didn't realize _how_ degradingly sexist our media was," he said then glanced over to where Barnes, an apron over his torso and a glowering look on his face, stood at the stove and insisted one more time, "I can't _cook_."

"Yeah, well, you have to learn someday," Tony said and motioned at him to finish frying up the hash browns. "Come on. We got hungry customers here."

"Does he…think we're at a diner?" Barton asked to no one in particular. Bruce just shook his head and made a motion at him to just go with it.

"Hey, yeah, you takin' breakfast orders?" Wilson called out to Barnes, who glared back at him. "'Cause I'll take two eggs over-easy with a side of bacon and some of those hash browns you're fryin' up."

Instead of glowering some more, Barnes just smiled at him. "Oh, I can't _wait_ to cook your breakfast."

Tony hedged a little and pushed in between the staring contest going on between the two. "Yeah, you know what? I think I'll get Wilson's breakfast for him."

"Oh! No, that's not a problem!" Barnes insisted. "I am perfectly capable of cooking up Birdman's chow."

"Er, yeah, I think I'll go with June Cleaver over there instead of the creepy cafeteria guy from that show — you remember that kids' show that was on, like, thirty years ago?" he asked to blank and tired stares. "What? On Nickelodeon. I used to watch it at my friend's house." At their continued blank and tired silence, Wilson put his hands up and sat back and said, "OK, you people were totally deprived of a lot is all I'm saying."

Tony put the tablet down and set the carafe back in the maker to brew up another pot, and after he'd dumped in a fresh supply of grounds and water, he went over to where Steve sat at the island, hunched over a tablet as he scanned through the data gleaned from the mission. Tony put his hands on his shoulders and began to rub and said, "How'd it go? Sorry I couldn't, you know, even join you remotely. You could have woken me up."

Steve just shook his head a little. "You looked too peaceful, and I know how hard it's been for you trying to get decent sleep lately. It's fine. Jim says if we ever desperately need an armored division, he's right there for us."

"Uh, I thought dear, old Uncle Sam is his first love?"

Steve shrugged then said, "I guess he's got some time built up."

"You know, if he just joined us permanently, he wouldn't even have to worry about getting a leave. In the real world, they're called 'vacation days.' Or 'sick days'—" he stopped rubbing Steve's shoulders for a moment to use finger quotes on the phrase, "—which, for whatever reason, always seem to happen on the nicest summer days."

As he set his hands back on Steve's shoulder to go back to rubbing them, Steve sighed out a groan and shook his head a little.

"What?" Tony asked, pulling his hands back because maybe Steve wasn't in the mood to have his shoulders rubbed?

"Hmm? Oh, nothing. Just— This Hydra stuff. They're planning something — or someone is."

"What do you mean 'someone'?"

"We have reason to believe there are several Hydra factions in operation at-current, all of them planning for something within the next few weeks or months," Natasha explained, and Tony only realized then that she had a 'serious business' voice the same way that Steve did.

"Yeah," Barton agreed, hunching over his coffee and seemingly inhaling the vapors, "and no one can seem to figure out which one or where. Or if any of them are working together—"

"I don't think any of them are working together," Steve said with a curt shake of his head. "This is about becoming high man on the totem pole. They'd step over their own mothers to get to the top."

"Hey, Flo!" Wilson called out to Barnes, who glanced back at him as he tended to his hash browns, a half-confused and half-annoyed look on his face.

"Who the hell is _Flo?_ "

But Wilson ignored that and instead said, "You got anything on this you could share?"

Barnes snorted a laugh and shook his head a little before he went back to the potatoes. "Not a goddamned thing. Most I can say is I'm not surprised they all splintered into different groups. They might all share the philosophy, but everyone wants to be top dog. Are these done yet? I told you, I can't _cook_."

Tony pulled away from Steve to check on the progress Barnes had made. "Eh, a little more. Try to get them a little brown and crispy."

"Yeah? Well, don't get mad if they end up black and charred," Barnes muttered and pushed at them with a spatula.

"Hey," Wilson said to him, "how'd you even end up on KP, anyway?"

"I dragged that idiot to Queens the night before I shipped out," he muttered, stabbing at the potatoes frying up in the pan.

Steve glanced up from his tablet. "How is it my fault?"

"If you don't know, Stevie, I'm not gonna tell you."

" _Stevie_ ," Steve muttered with a grumble and went back to staring at his tablet. "Buck, I'm not a kid anymore."

"What?" Wilson asked and looked at him. "You don't like 'Stevie'?"

"No," Barton said before he could respond, "but he's got a real kink for 'Captain.'"

"That's not—" Steve started to say with a shake of his head.

"Actually," Tony said and put a hand on Steve's shoulder, "he _begs_ me not to call him that in the bedroom. Something about 'crossing the streams,' I think. I don't know. Afraid he'll get all worked up in the field, or something, if I call him 'Cap' while he's fucking me into the mattress."

Steve dropped his head to his chest. "Tony, _why?_ " he murmured in horror.

Every eye in the room turned on them, and after a moment of silence, Barton said, "Uh, I just meant it as a power thing. I didn't know it was a sex kink, too." He looked at Steve and added, "Wait, you're not getting off on us calling you 'Cap,' are you?"

Steve just groaned and pressed his face into his hands before he glanced back at Tony and again asked, " _Why?_ "

Tony shrugged and bopped on back over to the stove to inspect the job Barnes was doing with the potatoes. He looked them over and said, "OK, you're good," and motioned for him to remove them from the heat. He turned back to the others and said, "How do you make a pie? I want to make a blueberry pie."

"Well, that was random as fuck," Barton muttered.

"I am not helping you make a pie," Barnes said and made to pull the apron off, but Tony caught him in time, and he snapped his fingers and glared at him then pointed to the fridge and said, "Eggs are in there, Jacques."

Barnes stared at him a moment before he shook his head and grumbled some, leaving the apron hanging loose around his neck as he went over to the fridge and pulled out the eggs.

"I can't fry an egg to save my life," Barnes said and pulled two cartons out of the fridge because evidently they had to have that many on them at all times now.

"Well," Tony said with a shrug. "Rome wasn't built in a day. Now—" he turned to his band of hungry little avengers, "—who wants what?"

Aside from the media constantly picking apart every single thing Tony now did — in a different way than they had in the past; Tony would clearly say this picking was inherently more sexist — life in Avengers tower was, for the most part, a dull exercise going into that summer. Getting Barnes cleared of the charges against the Winter Soldier was slow-going, but according to Pepper, who was told as much from the lawyers, there was a pretty good job of getting it all laid to rest and allowing James Barnes the peace and security he hadn't known for almost seventy years.

Tony honestly wasn't sure how to characterize Barnes' reaction when he told him that. Relief, he supposed, but tinged with something like remorse or maybe even regret — like maybe he didn't deserve it.

But Barnes, though, oddly enough, fit into the gang of idiots with much more ease than Tony had thought he might enjoy. In fact, Tony had presumed that Barnes would spend most of his time in the penthouse with him and Steve, but he was barely there except for when the others were, seeming to prefer to spend his time with Barton or Natasha or even his ~~new bestie~~ sworn enemy. Hell, he even hung around with Thor, whom he spent countless hours asking about his alien-ness from the perspective of someone that was convinced he was just some foreign national pulling the leg of a bunch of gullible Americans.

"So, if you're an alien, where's your ray gun?" he'd asked him one time.

"I thought aliens had space ships," he asked on another.

"Aren't you guys supposed to wear, like, shiny silver suits or something?"

"Have you ever actually said 'I come in peace'?"

Thor took it all with good humor, finding Barnes' questions more amusing than insulting, and somewhere along the line, Barnes had clearly come into familiarity with '50s sci-fi movies, especially considering the, "Hey, Klaatu barada nikto, man," he'd offered him one time during an argument, which went over both Thor's and Steve's heads and prompted a late-night watch of _The Day the Earth Stood Still_ — the good one, not the shitty one.

Tony, thanks to his condition, was ~~fortunately~~ unfortunately absent from a lot of the team building exercises forced on them by Steve, though even Steve missed out on the laser tag tournament, which was supposed to have been Team Awesome versus Team Magnets-Are-Our-Greatest-Weakness but evidently became, over the course of it, Team Kick-the-Asses-of-Those-Fucking-College-Kids.

They filed in, one after the other, late one afternoon, chattering animatedly with each other and slapping themselves on the back for a job well done. Even Barnes and Wilson seemed to be acting normal toward each other, and they all took what Tony sadly realized had become their 'assigned seats' in the living room as they told the tale of how they'd kicked the asses of a bunch of kids from NYU.

"Wait," Tony said and looked from one to the next, "you're proud of yourselves for beating a bunch of college students?" His gaze settled on Bruce, and he blinked at him a moment then said, "Wait, _you_ were involved with this?"

Bruce just shrugged, kind of embarrassed and kind of like he was ashamed to admit he'd had a good time, and Barton said, "I'm sorry. Did you think we said the New School? No! They were from NYU! The spoiled little shits had it coming to them."

The others voiced their agreement, even Thor getting in on the action, though Tony suspected he was saying it just to fit in with the others, and Natasha motioned to Wilson and Barnes and said, "Surprisingly enough, as it turns out, they make a pretty good tag-team."

Both men turned to glare at her like she'd just committed the most ultimate betrayal, and she just smiled a little and sat back, pleased with herself for what she'd said.

But the words seemed to pique Steve's interest and he looked between them like was analyzing something and said, "Seriously?"

"I _thought_ ," Wilson said through gritted teeth, "we weren't going to say anything about that in front of the Cap?"

Natasha shook her head, all innocent-like. "I never said that."

"You sold us out," Barnes said, sounding almost brokenhearted, the hard lines of his face going soft in his hurt — or his pretend hurt, at any rate.

"Seriously?" Steve said again, directing his question to the people in the room _not_ named Wilson or Barnes. "They work well together?"

"Amazingly," Barton said, sliding from the arm to the seat of a chair.

Steve turned to Barnes and Wilson like he was considering something, and both men yelled out, " _No!_ " at whatever he was thinking about.

"Look," Barnes added with a shake of his head, "I'm not sure I'm ready for that sort of thing — I don't even know if I want to do that sort of thing! Maybe I want to, I don't know, run a coffee shop or something?"

"You cannot be serious," Wilson said, and that was when Tony realized they were both sharing space on the love seat, Natasha sitting on the arm of it right next to Barnes.

"I could run a coffee shop."

"You don't know the first thing about running a coffee shop."

"I could read a book."

"Oh, yeah," Wilson said and scoffed, " _Coffee Shop Management for Dummies_."

Barnes' face went a little pinched, and Tony had a suspicion he was, rather than taking insult, filing the information away for future reference, especially considering the little nod he gave it.

"Still," Steve said, his tone of voice all business, "it's something to keep in mind. If you ever do think you're at a place to join us."

Barnes smiled at him, though Tony thought it looked kind of pained in a way he had a feeling Steve wasn't allowing himself to see. "Yeah," he said, and the words sounded sour on his tongue, "sure, Stevie. I'll think about it."

"Buck," Steve muttered with a sigh, "I really wish you'd stop calling me—"

"Look," Wilson cut in before Steve could finish his complaint, "I'm just putting it out there now: you pair me up with the cyborg, I am totally defecting to the Justice League."

"There's no such thing," Barnes said with a roll of his eyes and a shake of his head.

"Well, I'll form one!"

"With who? You and your little birdie friends? Hey, can you speak bird?"

Wilson stared at him a moment, Barnes staring back at him like he actually expect an honest answer to his question, before he turned to Steve and said, "Seriously, I will defect."

Barnes rolled his eyes and muttered, "Drama queen," which got him nothing in retaliation from Wilson...which meant he was just filing away the insult to use for ammunition for another day.

But, in thinking about the way Barnes had looked so reluctant over Steve's suggestion to join the Avengers, there was something about Barnes' attitude toward Steve that pinged something in his memory — something Steve had said to him just a few days before —

" _I don't think Bucky likes me anymore_."

It was said just as they were going to bed, on an increasingly rare occasion where Tony was still awake when Steve was finally ready to turn in for the night, Steve sitting on his side of the bed, a contemplative look on his face that bordered on sad. Tony, stuck for anything genuinely soothing or supportive to say thanks to the increasing fog enveloping his brain, just said, "I don't think he _hates_ you."

"I don't think he hates me, either," Steve said in agreement. "I don't think he _likes_ me, but I don't think he hates me."

And then he'd shrugged like there was nothing he could do about it and took a drink of water from the glass on the table on his side of the bed. Tony watched for a moment then said, "I'm sorry, _why_ do you think he doesn't like you?"

Steve shrugged again, setting the glass down and turning to tuck his legs under the blankets. "Just…a feeling, I guess. I don't know. He— He's always around with Sam or Nat or Clint or even Thor or Bruce. I don't— I don't see him much. Try to talk to him about things that happened to us or places we used to go, and he just…doesn't seem interested. I guess I can't blame him."

He shrugged again and said his 'goodnights' then lay down on his back, pulling the covers up to his chest. Tony sat there a moment more staring at him, watching as he gazed up at the ceiling, lips pursed and eyes a little pained as he probably once again, for the millionth time, played Barnes' fall from the train through in his head.

Tony exhaled a breath and said, "I think you're worrying over nothing. He shows up the same as the rest of them do — when they want something or when they're hungry. You— You're being too sensitive. I knew you were having some physical sympathy pains, but I didn't think you were dealing with the emotional crap, too."

"I'm not having sympathy pains," he muttered, but Tony knew he was just arguing for argument's sake.

"Really? The aches? The indigestion?"

"Probably overdid the training in the gym, and maybe curry just doesn't agree with me, either."

Tony then just shook his head, and he leaned over and put a hand to Steve's chest (more to steady himself than anything) and pressed a kiss to his forehead and said, "You're worrying over nothing, old man. Your oldest pal still likes you. Maybe he's just trying to give us some space, you know, 'cause we're married and should be wanting to spend every waking moment with each other."

Steve just shot him a look, but Tony could tell from the lightness in his eyes that Tony's lame attempts at comfort and distraction were not just appreciated but had worked a little bit as well.

But it was weighing on his mind, the same as something else Steve had mentioned about a week before that was weighing on his mind as well. Maybe he'd read too many parenting articles, maybe he'd watched too many videos or TV shows or whatever, but Steve was concerned that he had, well, nothing. Oh, not in terms of finances or material possessions — not _those_ kinds of material possessions, anyway — but Steve, as it turned out, was concerned that he didn't have anything _to pass down_. The little siphon on Tony's wealth and health wasn't even born yet, and Steve was thinking about his fucking legacy.

"I mean, you have everything that Howard had from what he'd built up or from what he'd gotten from his parents. You've got what _you've_ built up. I don't— I don't even have a picture of my parents. Kinda wish I had at least that."

Which, for some god forsaken reason, had just triggered the waterworks in Tony, and Steve had spent five minutes rubbing his back and letting him cry against his shoulder because he _didn't even have a picture of his parents!_

Which Tony, in one of his more brilliant moments at three a.m. when he couldn't sleep because he couldn’t get comfortable and somehow Steve had stolen the pillow that he liked to shove in between his legs, decided to right, trolling the internet and posting on one of the most popular Avengers fan forums that he — or rather 'Spare Parts Man' — was looking for actual vintage photographs related to Steve Rogers 'for a research project for his senior thesis.' Unsurprisingly, he got several hits on it, though none seemed actually legit except for a reply from 'JediEngineer770,' which a series of back-and-forth messages and emails only confirmed, and they eventually set up a meet-and-exchange for the end of June. Tony could only hope his pregnancy brain wasn't clouding his judgment for something like this, especially since there was something else also weighing on his mind:

Steve's birthday party.

Contrary to the shit Steve had pulled for his birthday, Tony made sure Steve and everyone knew what he was planning for Steve's birthday. Steve had the fortune of being born on one of the absolute best days in the American calendar to celebrate a birthday: July fourth, Independence Day. It was a day made for celebrations: grilling, fireworks, gaudy decorations. Steve wasn't one for making a big deal out of his birthday, but for the shit he pulled back with Tony's, the son-of-a-bitch was lucky if Tony didn't organize a fucking ticker-tape parade in his honor.

So, Tony decided to throw an extravaganza: food, music, revelry and the like. Fireworks were already taken care of, thank you, City of New York and your yearly pyrotechnics show over the Hudson. The Tower afforded a spectacular view of that, so he didn't have to go out of his way for the fireworks. He thought about inviting an embarrassing amount of people, but that would require all of them to be on their best behavior, and not that they were wont to act like swine in the privacy of their own home, but it was a lot easier to relax when it was just the Avengers and Company rather than the Avengers and Company and Those Types That Always Get Invited to These Sorts of Things but Really Have No Business Being There.

He'd name Darcy as 'Exhibit A' for that latter one, but Jane was 'and Company,' and there was no question in his mind that if Jane showed up, so would Darcy. Hell, even if Jane _didn't_ show up, Darcy probably would because, well, she'd been at the Christmas party, hadn't she? Had she been at the New Year's party? He'd been kind of sick that night and couldn't really remember (thinking he'd had a stomach bug — good god, if only he'd known!), but she'd been at his birthday party.

Why shouldn't she show up at Steve's birthday?

Jesus, what could she _possibly_ want to know this time? And would she remember that Tony had never given her an answer on the orgasm question?

So, even though he knew they'd end up with a few oddballs, he went with just the usual crew and then went about organizing the bash, demanding it be like a Fourth of July Picnic but awesomer and with more razzmatazz. Barton, for some dumb fuck reason, said he had 'other plans.' Bruce asked if he was moonlighting for the Justice League (what was it with people mentioning the Justice League so much?), which confused Thor, who thought there really was such a league and wondered if it was in the Avengers' best interest to aid their brothers in arms, but Barton said no, he just had somewhere else to be that day.

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you _flipping a house_ that day or something?" Tony muttered like Barton's lack of attendance was some sort of personal affront.

Barton nodded a little like he was actually giving it some consideration. "I might."

"Whatever," Tony said with a roll of his eyes then gave him ten demerits for missing their team leader's birthday party.

Barton reminded him they weren't at 'fucking Hogwarts.' Wilson perked up and asked what house everyone thought they'd be in if they were. Barnes just asked, "What the hell is a 'Hogwarts'?"

"Wait," Wilson said and turned to him. "You know 'Klaatu barada nikto,' but you don't know 'Hogwarts'?"

"It sounds like VD," he replied.

Wilson just stared at him, and Barton said, "Well, sounds like you won't be on JK's Christmas card list this year."

Barnes's face went a little pinched in thought. "Who's JK?"

"How do you know '50s sci-fi shit but don't know _Harry Potter_?" Wilson cried.

Barnes just shrugged then said, "Hey, you know I can do a Vulcan nerve pinch?"

He reached out like he was going to pinch the area of Wilson's neck and shoulder, and Wilson jumped back and cried, "How do you know _Star Trek_ and not know _Harry Potter_?"

Barnes thought about this then said, "Is _Harry Potter_ the one with the little green dwarf that talks funny and the guy in the all-black suit that talks funny?"

Wilson just stared at him like he was being stabbed in the heart by each and every one of Barnes's words, and Barton said, "Well, clearly, there's been some gaps in his cultural education."

Bruce was the one to shake his head and sadly lament, "How do you confuse _Star Wars_ and _Harry Potter_?"

"Uh, I don't know," Barnes said, "maybe by getting frozen and unfrozen a gazillion times over the last sixty years."

Tony wasn't sure whether or not the words were met with a dour response or snickering from the dark humor of it all. The moment the word 'frozen' had hit his ears, he saw a chirpy little blonde in a purple t-shirt sitting on his couch and singing out a three-year-old's rendition of 'Let It Go.'

He wasn't sure he would ever not think about the what-might-have-been.

But that was a concern for another time because he had other things to deal with — parties to plan and presents to get and friendships to help mend, which all kind of came crashing into each other at one point. It was as he was putting on the finishing touches to his decorating scheme one morning about a week before when Barnes showed up in his lab, confusion written all over his face.

"So, uh, there any reason you sent Birdman to tell me you wanted to see me?"

Tony sat back at little from his computer. He'd actually forgotten that he'd asked Wilson to send Barnes down, but he pushed that to the back of his mind and said, "Honestly? I know it's only been, like, a month-and-a-half, but it's kind of gotten to the point where when I see or think of one of you, the other one immediately pops into mind."

Barnes couldn't have rolled his eyes harder at that if he'd tried.

"Anyway, I saw him, I thought, 'Oh, right, I need to talk to his pal Barnes about something.'"

Barnes shook his head a little then said, "Why didn't you just ask your ceiling-guy to send me down here?"

"Because. Weren't you listening? I saw Wilson, and—" he smacked his forehead lightly like a thought had just come into his mind, "—oh! Right! Need to speak to Barnes about something!"

Again, Barnes rolled his eyes so hard that if he hadn't been presumably juiced up with Zola's off-brand serum, he would have done some serious damage to himself.

"Anyway—"

"So, what'd you want to see me about?" Barnes asked, gruff, maybe slightly annoyed, and folded his arms tight against his chest.

"Hmm? Oh! First off—" He picked up a stylus that was laying around and pointed it at him. "How's the arm?"

Barnes shrugged. "Can't complain."

"Anything bothering you? Anything you need me to tweak?"

Barnes continued to shake his head. "No, it— It feels…OK," he said, almost like he was surprised at the fact that the words were actually earnest.

"OK," he said with an appraising nod. "Good. Look, anything ever bothers you — even in the slightest — don't even hesitate to tell me. You need an upgrade?"

"Huh?"

Tony pointed to the arm again. "Look, it's not the _worst_ thing I've ever encountered. It's not like it's _Hammer Tech_ or anything." He shivered. "But if you want, I could—"

"Yeah, Steve was sayin' you could make me a new arm. I don't— I'm not really— Could you do that?"

"Sure," he said with a nod. "Not a problem."

"I mean I don't—" Barnes said quickly. "I don't— Maybe not right _now_ , but, you know, if I ever wanted to take you up on the offer?"

Tony shrugged. "Standing offer. Just let me know— Uh, but make sure you give me, like, a day or two to work on it. Actually, make that three. Four? Look, this extra weight I've been carrying around for the past, oh, whatever, has kind of been slowing me down a bit, and Steve gets all pissy when I spend too much time down here without food or sleep."

Barnes gave him a flat look and nodded at that but said nothing, and Tony took that as his opening to ask him the other thing that was on his mind.

"Yeah, so, why don't you like Steve anymore?"

" _What?_ " Barnes asked, face pinched in confusion.

"Steve. My husband. Guy that wears the flag for a uniform. Tight, firm ass—"

He kind of made a slight clutching motion with his hands as he said that — like he was squeezing that gorgeous ass right at that moment. Barnes just grimaced a little like he knew exactly what Tony was thinking about and wasn't happy the thought had been put into his head.

"Kind of has it in that big, blonde head of his that you don't really like him anymore," he continued after he finished thinking about getting his hands on his husband's ass.

Barnes stood there a moment and processed the words before he rolled his eyes once more and muttered a disbelieving, "Oh, my god." He shook his head and exhaled a sharp breath then looked at Tony and said, "He doesn't really—"

"Think you don't like him?" he finished for him. "Kinda, seeing as those are the words that he used."

Barnes shook his head some more, arms still folded tight against his chest, and he scoffed and muttered, "I can't believe this," then looked at Tony again and said, "Did he happen to say _why_ he thinks I don't like him?"

"Thinks you're annoyed with him, thinks you don't really want to talk with him, thinks you wish he'd just go away—"

Barnes dropped his arms, and he ran his flesh hand through his hair and shook his head one more time then said, "I can't believe that— Does he really think—?" He groaned and shook his head and looked point-blank at Tony. "You want to know the truth? You want to know what it— I don't _hate_ him. How could I—? But I don't want to constantly talk about shit that happened eighty years ago that doesn't mean anything anymore. And I get the feeling that Steve…that he thinks that if we try to talk about anything else we won't have anything to talk about. I'm not the same guy I was then. Neither's he. Maybe we're too different? I don't know. I kinda want to know how the son-of-a-bitch ended up _here_ of all places, but he doesn't want to talk about that. Just wants to keep reliving the good old days and talk about random shit that happened in 1935. _Hey, remember when—?_ Yeah, I remember, Steve. But I also remember a lot of other shit that's happened since then. And yeah, I get that he feels like it's his fault or something what happened to me, and I get that he feels guilty about that, but acting like it never happened doesn't change the fact that it _did_ happen. And I know he says that he understands that, but I'm not entirely sure that he does. So, yeah, maybe I've been a little short with him lately or something, but I don't fucking _hate him_. I just wish he'd stop trying to pretend the last seventy fucking years didn't happen. I'm not saying we can't talk about the old days _at all_ , but I don't want that to be the only thing we talk about." He snorted a laugh. "Jesus, talk about..."

He shook his head like the rest of the thought didn't matter before he exhaled a heavy breath like a weight had finally lifted from his chest, and he rubbed both his hands over his face then looked at Tony and said quietly, almost sadly, "And maybe if he hears that from _you_ , he'll actually listen to it."

Tony just stared at him, not really sure what to say, and Barnes chuckled some to himself.

"Hey, sorry about unloading on you like that. Just—"

"It's been building. I get it."

"Yeah, but— Look, I know he's trying, and I know he's got his own shit to deal with, but making like the last seventy years never happened isn't gonna do shit for either one of us. Like I said, I think he's afraid that if we try to talk about anything other than what happened back then, we won't have anything to talk about. I don't know _why_. It's not like I have that problem with Birdman or Barton or Nat or your pal Rhodes or even _you_."

Tony nodded and went to say something, but the thought flew out of his mind when one particular name on that list finally caught his attention.

"What, _Rhodes?_ Since when are you hanging out with Rhodey?"

Barnes shrugged. "I don't know. Once or twice. We were all hanging out down on the floor you claim never gets used—"

"Uh, I don't remember this."

Barnes grimaced a little and rubbed the back of his neck with his metal hand. "Yeah, you and Steve weren't there."

Tony blinked at him. "I'm sorry, _what?_ "

But Barnes just shrugged and dropped his hand. "Pizza. Beer. Bullshitting. We were just hanging out."

"Without me and Steve."

"Yeah."

Tony just blinked at him again, almost feeling like he'd been betrayed. "Did any of you think to, I don't know, _ask_ me and Steve to join you?"

Barnes was silent a beat before he said a quiet, "No."

"Why not?"

"'Cause."

"'Cause _why?_ "

He shrugged again. "'Cause. You two are married and, uh, _pregnant_ , and we're not— Married, I mean. Not—" He motioned at Tony. "That other thing."

Tony just stared at him, trying to process what he'd been told and coming up only with error messages. "I'm sorry. Are you trying to freeze us out?"

"No."

"Then why didn't you invite us to your little powwow?"

"Just didn't think about it. I said, you two are old and married and…pregnant. The rest of us are single and definitely _not_ pregnant. Maybe you two were busy at the time. I don't know. Just the way it happened, that's all."

Tony sat back in his chair, folding his arms and nestling them beneath his breasts, grimacing slightly at how tender they were. "So," he said, "you guys just decided to start having these little group-meets but not invite me and Steve to them — _me_ being the person that _owns_ this building and _funds_ the team—"

"Yeah, Bruce said you'd get all whiny about it if you found out."

" _Bruce?_ " he cried, sitting up fast — or as fast as he could, anyway. He had a way-too-big belly weighing him down. " _Bruce_ is part of your little secret club?"

"It's not a secret club."

"Uh, it's a little coffee klatch that Steve and I didn't know about. That's pretty much the definition of a secret club."

"Hey, it's not like we say _bad_ things about you guys there!"

"Wait, you _talk_ about us?"

He shrugged. "Maybe a little. Nothing bad. There may have been a battle recently over who gets to be your, uh, experiment's godparents."

Tony raised an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, isn't that something Steve and I get to decide?"

He shrugged again. "You're not the only thing we talk about. Just comes up sometimes because, well, not everyday you see a fella turned into a woman."

Barnes had moved closer to him by this point, close enough that he could glance down and ponder over what Tony was doing, and as Tony sat there and stewed in his indignation that the gang of miscreants — and Rhodey, _Rhodey_ — conducted secret little group-chats without them, Barnes looked over the tablet that was currently displaying Tony's 'artist's rendering' of the cake he'd ordered for Steve from that bakery in Brooklyn that had done their previous cakes, raising an eyebrow at it before he said, "Are you really doing what I think you're doing with that cake?"

"Why? Too much?"

"No, it's fuckin' hysterical," Barnes said, and though his tone was kind of flat, Tony got that he was actually speaking the truth, which…didn't _fix_ the annoyance of being left out, but it was still nice to know his hard work was being appreciated.

Tony grinned, pleased at what he'd come up with. "Think he'll like it?"

"Secretly? It'll tickle the shit out of him. Don't expect him to admit it out loud, though. He's too… Doesn't like waste. Grew up poor as fuck. Secretly, he loves this sort of shit, but he can't justify the expense."

Tony arched an eyebrow. "You know what a box of shitty sparklers goes for?"

Barnes shrugged. "It's the principle of the thing. It looks… It looks like you're going to a lot of trouble for him."

Tony thought about this a moment. "I kind of am. But he's worth it."

"He won't see it that way."

"I'm starting to get the feeling you're trying to discourage me from doing this."

"What? No! Are you kidding? Embarrass the shit out of the guy! He's never had anyone to make a big deal over him like this before. He deserves it. You're good—"

He stopped short and ran his flesh hand through his hair like he was trying to figure out exactly what he wanted to say.

"Steve is a pain in the ass," he finally decided on, "and maybe a bit— He's bigger now, so you kind of gotta listen to him, but even before, he — he had this fucking outsized attitude for this little body, like a goddamned Chihuahua. And so fucking serious. Like he was… I don't know, I think he was a little tough to take if you didn't know him. I grew up with him. I knew him. He was a fucking shit. Driest sense of humor going. Could be kind of goofy or playful around the right person. Would give the shirt off his back for you."

He stopped and looked at Tony like he was trying to figure if Tony understood what he was trying to say. When Tony just stared right back at him, he sighed a little and continued.

"I don't know how he fell in with you guys, but I'm glad he did. You're good people. You like him. You bring his ego down when he needs it. I'm glad he has you. I just…hope the idiot realizes what he's got."

Tony shrugged. "Well, you'd have to ask him, and even then, you wouldn't get a solid answer out of him. I mean I love him, but the guy's not above lying to himself or anyone else. He calls them 'technicalities.'"

He used finger quotes on the word, and Barnes snorted a laugh.

"Yeah, that sounds like Steve." He paused and considered Tony a moment then said, "I'm not really surprised Steve got himself mixed up with a fella that's kind of a woman, too, for reasons I still don't really understand, but I— I'm glad Steve found you. I'm glad he's got you. You seem— You actually seen like you actually love him and, honestly, that's all I ever wanted for him. Was never sure if he'd get it." He shrugged. "Shame the poor bastard had to wait seventy years for it, but better late than never, right?"

"That's what they say," he said with a shrug only to have JARVIS intone from on high, " _I'm sorry, Sir, but if you wish to make your meeting, you should probably leave the premises now_."

"Meeting?" Barnes murmured as Tony said up and said, "Right, yeah, save it and close it, J." He hummed a little to himself and got up from his chair — more of a struggle than he would have wanted to show in front of Barnes, but whatever — and grabbed his sunglasses and his bag and his keys.

"Where you goin'?" Barnes asked as he watched Tony make his way over to the door.

Tony slipped his glasses over his eyes and said, "None of your business, but if you must know…" He grinned. "It's a surprise for Steve."

Barnes grimaced. Tony would go so far as to say he wasn't convinced Tony's 'surprise' would be a good thing. "What kind of a surprise?" he asked, not even trying to hide his hesitance or unease.

"Hmm, well, clearly a better surprise than that 'true love' bra you assholes got me for _my_ birthday. Pops open when you're turned on — are you _kidding_ me?"

Barnes snorted out the most obnoxious laugh going, and when Tony raised an eyebrow at him, he put his hands up in a sort of surrender and said, "I was not part of that. It's funny, but I wasn't part of that brain trust. You used it yet?"

Tony stared at him a moment before he said a snappish, " _No_ , not exact— I'm a little too _big_ for it, if you must know."

Barnes snorted another laugh.

"I'm sorry, that's funny?"

Barnes sobered a little and shook his head. "No, absolutely not, and do not tell Steve I laughed at you."

"OK," he said with an easy shrug. "I won't tell Steve. Hey, is your buddy Wilson around?"

Barnes's eyes went wide as he realized what Tony was hinting at. "No, come on, that's not fair!"

Tony grinned at Barnes's sudden panic then said, "Yeah, seriously, what's with this pissing contest between you two? I mean, in theory, shouldn't _we_ be the ones having a pissing contest with each other?"

" _Why?_ " Barnes asked, genuinely confused.

"Well, you're Steve's best pal."

"So?"

"I'm the one taking your best pal away from you."

Barnes still looked sincerely confused by Tony's concern. "I've told you before. I was always afraid Steve would never find someone that…appreciated him for who he was. You _clearly_ have little hearts in your eyes if you so much as _think_ about him. You're—" he made a weird hand-wavy motion with his flesh hand and continued, "— _goofy_ , but I'm glad he has you."

"I'm sorry, _goofy?_ "

"Yeah, you're…neurotic. And obsessive. And kinda _loud_ when Steve's doing things to you— I'm never going to be able to unhear that, though, actually, part of me's kind of proud that he knows how to do that."

Tony shrugged and decided to take it for the ass-backwards compliment it was. "He's good at what he does."

"Which is not something I ever thought anyone would say about him, so again, I'm very glad he has you. Look, if you're worried that this pissing contest Birdman and I have going on is going to affect things with the rest of you guys, it's not— I don't actually dislike the guy, all right? I don't know how he feels about me, but I don't hate him. It's just— I don't know, it's fun." He exhaled a laugh and said, "Look, Steve— I get it. I'm from his 'old life,' and I'm the last real link he has to that, but I'm not— I'm not _that guy_ anymore, and he says he knows that, but I'm not really sure he does. And everyone else has been, I don't know, _nice_ or _understanding_ about things, but Wilson… He's the only one treating me like I'm not something that needs to be fixed." He choked out a laugh and added, "I know I… I know I got stuff in my head that I might never be able to get rid of, but it's nice to not feel broken."

Tony took in Barnes's words, parsing them as much as he could with the fog that had enveloped his brain during this last trimester of the pregnancy, and he wondered if Wilson was doing this on purpose — treating Barnes this way on purpose. Not entirely — there was probably some element of jealousy involved because the new best bro was afraid of getting discarded for the old, returned best bro — but maybe Wilson had seen that what Barnes needed was not to be reminded of the good, old days or to be handled with kid gloves but to be treated as a human being with agency and free will, and maybe a pissing match was the best way he knew of to do something like that.

Though there was probably some element of jealousy involved.

"Not worried," Tony said with a curt shake of his head. "Kinda funny seeing Wilson's bitchy side. He was the last sane one around here until you showed up. Now, he's asking me if it's possible to trick out a paintball gun."

"Yeah, well, he's gonna need all the help he can get for that," Barnes said, a little too smug and cocky.

Tony shrugged. "I don't know. Barton's an ass, but he's a good fucking shot—" He pointed a finger at Barnes and added, "I _ever_ find out you told him that—"

Barnes shook his head. "Fucker's not on my team. I don't care."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me: it's you and Romanova."

Barnes's face went a little soft at that, and Tony would go so far as to say it looked like the son-of-a-bitch was smiling.

"Yeah," he replied, quiet and with more meaning to it than Tony had the means to process at the moment.

" _Sir, I must insist that if you wish to make your meeting on time, you need to leave the premises presently_."

"Yep, heard it, got it, on my way, J," he said then turned to Barnes and said, "Uh, you hanging out down here or—?"

"Nah," he said and followed Tony over to the door. "This place might get Steve all hot and bothered, but it doesn't do a thing for me."

"Uh…good to know," Tony said as they went over to the elevator together.

After Barnes had departed for destination unknown, Tony went down to the basement garage and grabbed the Audi, and he drove down to the Village through what was not exactly heavy traffic for an early Saturday afternoon, finding a space close to the agreed-upon coffee shop. It was a tight squeeze, but he managed it ( _he_ was a pro at parallel parking; Steve…was not), and he sat there and only then remembered to check his bag to make sure he had everything he needed.

Wallet?  Check. Phone? Check. Personal checkbook? Check. Antacids? Check.

(Indigestion was going to be the death of him.)

Prototype lightweight gauntlet for travel purposes? Check. Hey, he was an Avenger pregnant with the child of the world's first super soldier. It didn't hurt to be prepared, especially since everyone knew who he was now.

Though, to be honest, the worst he'd dealt with on the street since the press conference was some middle-aged asshole asking, "Your tits real?" with his hands close enough that it was like he wanted to get a feel of them just to confirm. He'd wanted to snap back some pithy, condescending comment, but he couldn't think of one fast enough, and besides, Steve-the-Killjoy had been there to pull him away before he could get himself into any trouble.

He checked his makeup because that was something he did now, checked his mirror to make sure there was no traffic coming, and then popped open his door and stepped out onto the street.

The quiet of the West Village on a Saturday afternoon was actually kind of a welcome respite from the more tourist-traveled Midtown. Meeting up there might have been more convenient to him, but this was a meeting he didn't want getting out — not because he was doing anything _bad_ but, if his hunch was right and this was the real deal, he wanted it to be a genuine surprise for Steve.

He walked in between the back bumper of the Audi and the front bumper of some piece of shit that didn't even have a front plate on it and stepped onto the sidewalk. He walked the twenty feet down the block to the shop's front door, peering inside through rose-tinted glasses to see how busy it was.

Thankfully, not busy at all.

Tony stepped into the small coffee shop, the bell attached to the door jingling above. The lighting was dim, but he left his sunglasses on and looked around the quiet and mostly-empty establishment for someone that looked like he was there to sell something.

There was a couple tucked into a table toward the back, close to the counter but away from the windows, and something told Tony this was his man (and woman), but he went over to the counter and looked over the chalked menu for only a moment before he ordered — god help him — a large herbal vanilla chai-thing.

God, this whole 'limiting his coffee intake for the sake of his unborn child' thing had better have been worth it in the end. What was worse? Herbal tea-shit or decaf coffee?

He rested a hip against the counter as he waited for his order to brew up, casually pulling out his phone and checking the headlines, spying at the couple over the gold metal rim of his glasses. The man was actually kind of good-looking. On the tall side, clearly, kind of lanky but with broad shoulders, probably in his early '40s, with dark hair and a neatly-groomed beard. The woman was attractive as well with long, dark hair and prominent cheekbones and a sharp nose that gave her more of a sophisticated, 'classic' beauty look. They were talking amongst themselves, the man checking something on his phone, the woman hunched into him and murmuring something to him as she brushed her fingers over the nape of his neck.

Tony startled as the barista held his tea out to him, and he tweaked a smile at her, took the beverage, and then carried it over to the table. He stood there for only a moment before he said, "I don't usually come to this part of the city for a number of reasons, but I've been to worse, so I guess I really can't complain."

They both looked up as soon as he opened his mouth, both seemingly surprised and a little confused, and Tony pulled out the chair across from them and settled into it, slowly, gritting his teeth as he tried not to collapse into the chair like the bloated behemoth he was.

And he still had another two months of this — _no!_ A month-and-a-half. God, he did not want to still be this way at the end of August.

The man opened and closed his mouth a couple times, blinking, like he wasn't even sure what to say, and Tony took a sip of his vanilla chai — ugh, tolerable but he could have gone for an extra-large Americano right about now, and he wasn't talking about one that answered to 'Captain' — then set the cup down and said, "I believe you have some pictures for me."

The man stared at him a moment, and Tony tried to play it off like it was nothing, but there was something a little odd about the way he looked at him. Like he was trying to figure something out. Like he was trying to figure where he'd seen Tony before.

Well, if the dumb bastard hadn't been watching the news the past couple months, it was his own too-bad.

There was also something a bit strangely… Well, to be honest, there was almost something about this man that reminded Tony a little of Steve — whether it was the shape of his dark eyes or the cut of his jaw or the breadth of his shoulders.

But the man just said, "Don't look like much of a 'Spare Parts Man,'" and turned to the woman beside him, who picked up an oversized purse from the floor and unzipped it, pulling out a thin box that would have fit a stack of 8x10s.

"Yeah, well, you'd be surprised," he said as the woman handed the box to the man. He took it and then motioned to her and said, "This is my wife, Tracy. Trace, this is, ah—"

"Oh, don't worry," she said, smiling, giddy like she was thrilled even just to be in the same room, "I know who this is." She stuck out her hand to Tony and said, "It's so nice to meet you. I've heard so much— I mean, I've read so much about, uh…"

She grimaced a little like she'd fucked something up, but Tony still shook her hand anyway and said, "Yeah, I get that a lot," before he turned to the other man also named 'Tony,' as it turned out, and not really 'JediEngineer770.'

Other Tony opened the box and tucked the bottom into the lid as he said, "I can't promise you anything, but I hope this is something like what you're looking for."

He slid the box over to Tony, and Tony pulled it close and began to inspect what was collected inside. It wasn't much — one, a five-by-seven black-and-white glossy of what looked like a very young Steve and Bucky. Steve was in a cap and gown, something rolled up and tied with a ribbon in his hand (Tony presumed it was a diploma). Bucky, taller, cockier, was leaning onto him, arm around his shoulders. It was hard to tell, there wasn't much to discern, but it looked like it was taken in a back garden of some kind, fencing and tenements blurry in the background. Tony looked it over a little more before he turned it over, spying in pencil ' _Steven and James, Graduation, June 1936_ ' scripted in neat handwriting on the back.

He set it down and picked up the next one, one of the two remaining that was in a little pocket folder of some kind. He unfolded the two flaps and took in the serious yet soft look of what could only be Sarah Rogers. She was in uniform, a nurse's cap and blouse, light hair pinned back and barely the hint of makeup visible on her face. The photographer's name was scrolled in gold at the bottom right corner of the folder, and Tony brushed his thumb over it as he looked over the picture of the woman that was Steve's mother. She was pretty, a little serious-looking, but with a presumed maternal quality about her that came through a ninety-year-old sepia-toned matte photograph.

He closed up the flaps and set that aside then picked up the last photo, also in a folder but a little larger than the previous one had been. He unfolded the flaps, this one a little more worn and frayed at the edges, gasping a little at the obvious resemblance he saw staring back at him.

Steve's father. Without a doubt.

Whether it was the cut of his jaw or the hairline or the shape of the eyes, this was clearly Steve's father, a service photo presumably taken before he'd shipped off for France to meet his doom.

Whereas Steve's mother had looked serious, Tony would say that Joseph Rogers had a stern look about him — like if the Stare of Disapproval was Steve's normal look rather than something that came out when he was, well, disapproving something. Steve clearly resembled both of his parents, but it was obvious that he took after his father just a little bit more, though it was hard to tell if his father was tall or short in this photograph.

Tony closed the flaps again and set the photo aside, and he looked right at the dark eyes of the contact he only knew as 'Other Tony' and said, "How did you even get these?"

Other Tony reached up and scratched at his forehead. "Uh," he said, like he was trying to be a) casual and b) buy himself some time, "my mom had them. Her father had them. No idea why. Guess he was a big Captain America fan?"

Other Tony dropped his hand and shrugged a little, like he wasn't sure how to explain it, and Tony eyed him a moment as he tried to discern the sincerity of his words before he began to collect the photographs and set them back in the box they'd been brought in.

"Purchased them? Stole them?"  Tony prodded.

"I don't know," Other Tony with a slight shake of his head, and Tony startled at the very… _familiar_ …motion. God, it was so… _Steve-like_ — even the way he said 'I don't know.'

Tony glanced up, raising an eyebrow at the man that was doing his best to stare back at Tony, innocence written over his face. Tony stared at him a moment more before he blinked and shook his head, telling himself he was crazy. He was looking for correlations and connections where there were none. This was just some guy from Jersey that — somehow — was in possession of Steve's old photos. There was nothing 'there' beyond that.

"Well," he said and turned to the small bag he carried with him, "I promised you money for these," he said and pulled out the checkbook for his personal account. He slapped it on the table and pulled out a pen, and he jotted down the date and began to write out 'Other Tony' on the payable line but stopped himself right before he was about to write out the 'O' and said, "Uh, spell your last name?"

Other Tony complied, Tony shaking his head at the length of the name ending in 'ski,' and he wrote out the agreed amount, signed it, and tore it out of the book.

"Uh, yeah," he said as he handed the slip over, Tracy's eyes going wide in what was clearly surprise at the number, "you're probably going to have to pay taxes on that. I'd contact an accountant if I were you in order to figure out the best way of claiming it so you don't lose it all."

"Yeah," Other Tony said, nodding, staring at it a moment — was he staring at the _names?_ — before he handed it over to his wife. "Sure, yeah," he said and smiled at Tony. "My dad's an accountant. He'll know what to do."

"Convenient," Tony said and untucked the bottom of the box from the top. "Seriously, though," he said as he closed it up, "how in the hell did your family get their hands on these? Are they even real? Did I just spend twenty-five thousand dollars on a couple of fakes?"

Other Tony shrugged. "Honestly, I just know Gramps had them. Where he got them from, I don't know. I wasn't there. They've always existed as long as I've been alive. Mom doesn't know exactly how Gramps got them, either, but she always remembers them being there, too."

"Well, that's convenient," Tony muttered. "How long are we talking here?"

"I don't know. A long time."

"How long?"

"How should I know? Ma doesn't even know! She just knows they've always been there."

"All right, well, how old's your mom?" Tony asked because, well, why the hell not?

"Uh," Other Tony said and furrowed his brow, glancing up to the ceiling in thought, for some reason not thinking Tony's question was in any way not any of his business. "Sixty-seven? I think," he said, turning back to Tony. "Sixty-eight at the end of the year."

Tony did the math and said, "So, born after the war, then?"

Other Tony nodded some. "You could say that," he said, slowly, like there was more than one meaning behind it.

Tony quirked his head a little at him but shook his odd words off. "Whatever," he muttered and picked up his tea again. He took another sip, made a face at the fact that it did _not_ taste like coffee, and set it back down.

"I have to ask," Tracy said, jumping into the conversation. "Is it— What's it _like?_ "

Tony arched an eyebrow at her. "What's _what_ like?"

"Trace, _please_ ," Other Tony said. "Not something I want to know."

"Well, I do," she said, nudging him a little but keeping her focus solely on Tony. "I mean, I— I've always been this way. I was born this way. But you— Is it weird? Is it uncomfortable? Do you _like_ it? Which do you like better?"

Other Tony dropped his face into his hand and shook his head a little, but Tracy continued to stare at him expectantly, reminding him a little of a more well-intentioned Darcy with her questions, and Tony paused a moment, trying to think of what he could say that wasn't going to be splashed all over the tabloids the moment he left the shop.

"Look," he said, "it's not the worst thing that's ever happened to me. Against my will? Yeah. But considering the other things that have been done to me over the years against my will, _definitely_ far from the worst thing. And it's definitely… It's been kind of interesting discovering a completely different side of myself that I didn't even realize was there, but I'm kind of digging now. Plus, and I probably shouldn't say this to complete strangers, but let's just say I'm married to a man that loves me and is _clearly_ attracted to me no matter what I look like, and if that isn't true love, then what is?"

Tracy's brown eyes sparkled in delight. "That's amazing. God, you're so lucky."

Tony just shrugged.

"So, do you like sex better as a man or as a—"

" _Tracy_ ," Other Tony said, groaning her name out with a hint of a whine.

"What? He—" She looked at Tony. "She? I don't want to offend—"

"I'm fine with 'he.'"

Tracy nodded and turned back to Other Tony. "He doesn't have to answer anything he doesn't want to."

Other Tony pulled his hand away from his face and looked at her. "I really don't need to know—"

"What? It's not like it's your _parents_."

Other Tony and Tracy shared a _look_ , holding each other's gazes, giving each other cute and coy little smiles before Other Tony said, "You're not funny."

"Not trying to be," Tracy replied, but she was smiling a little as she did so.

Jesus Christ, is this what other people saw when they saw him and Steve? OK, he suddenly couldn't blame any of the complaints that had been made about how…schmoopy they were with each other. It was kind of…cute but annoying to watch.

"Anyway," Tracy said and turned back to Tony. "So, Captain America — he's _good?_ "

She waggled her eyebrows a little, and Other Tony muttered, "I hate you," but she shook her head and said, "You don't."

"You ask him one more question about that, I'll divorce you."

"No, you won't." She patted his hand and added, "You come from a long line of _long_ , stable marriages. Your parents have been married, what, forty years now? And your grandparents were married for forty-five, wasn't it?"

"Yeah, something like that. And Jeff isn't 'biologically' my father."

Tracy rolled her eyes. "He's your father. He raised you and took care of you, which is more than you can say for that asshole sperm donor."

Other Tony made a face. "I don't know if you should call him—"

"Your _mother_ calls him that," Tracy reminded him. She let out a disgusted groan and added, "Every time I see him on TV, I want to punch him, and I've only met him twice. Such a scuzzball."

Tony turned to Other Tony and said, "Who's your father?" because clearly he had no business knowing, but he wanted to know anyway.

Other Tony hedged a moment before he exhaled a breath and said, "David Welch."

Tony was glad he hadn't taken a sip of his tea right before that. He would have spit it out all over Other Tony and Tracy.

"Oh, good you're familiar with his work," Other Tony muttered at what was presumably Tony's very bad job of hiding his shock and horror.

"David Welch? _That_ David Welch? The one that got a stick up his ass somewhere around 1983 and hasn't been able to get it out since? _Seriously?_ "

Other Tony nodded. "Yeah. He really has out for you guys, doesn't he?"

"Yeah, and 'asshole' is putting it mildly."

Other Tony snorted a laugh and said, "You know, I can still remember— I was just a kid, but I can still remember my gramps throwing him out of the house. _Literally_ throwing him out of the house."

_You're not going to throw me out into the street again, are you?_

Other Tony continued to talk, but Tony stared at him, gawking, squinting and thinking — wondering…

No. That didn't… No, that wasn't— The mannerisms, the photographs, the kind-of-looks-like-a-dark-haired-Steve-if-you-squint…

What was going on here?

"How did you get these photographs?" Tony asked as Other Tony continued to talk about… something.

Other Tony stopped abruptly and exchanged a look with Tracy before he turned to Tony. "Uh, well, like I said—"

"Yeah, your mother. Who's your mother?"

Other Tony stared right back at him. Tony spied a sliver of unease in his dark eyes but he kept his composure as he said, "Uh…no one. Just my mom. She was a… She taught science. Uh, why?"

Tony huffed and shook his head in slight irritation. "Yeah, fine, your 'gramps.' The guy that had these photos. Who was he?"

"Steve Edwards," Other Tony replied without missing a beat. "He was a teacher. Montclair High School. That's where my mom and her sister grew up. I don't know how he got the photos. Like I said, I wasn't there."

"Yeah," Tony said, sitting back a little and folding his arms, resting them on the swell of his belly, "I'm not really one to accuse total strangers of lying to my face, but clearly, you're lying to me."

Other Tony just stared right at him. "I'm really not," he said, even and firm, seemingly convinced of the truth of his words.

Tony unfolded his arms and leaned forward, folding his arms again to rest them on the tabletop. "So, you expect me to believe some random guy from New Jersey just happened to get his hands on Steve Rogers's personal family photographs and keep them in his possession for, like, fifty years?"

Other Tony shrugged. "Really the weirdest thing you've ever heard of?"

"That's not the point. Clearly, either you're not telling me something or—"

"Or what?" Other Tony asked. "If you're looking for a conspiracy, there isn't one. I don't know how he got the photos, and I'm not sure what makes you think I'm being anything less than on-the-level with you."

Tony stared at him a moment then said, "Your 'gramps' threw David Welch out onto the street."

"Yeah, so? Are you saying he didn't deserve it?"

"Two weeks ago at a fundraising gala, David Welch comes up to me and Steve and says to Steve, _You're not going to throw me out into the street again, are you?_ Steve has never laid one finger on this man in his life, but now I'm starting to think, I don't know, _maybe_ there's something going on here that you're not quite telling me."

Other Tony arched an eyebrow. "Like?"

"Your 'gramps' isn't 'Steve Edwards' or whatever name you gave. It's 'Steve Rogers.' I haven't figured out yet how that's possible, but at the beginning of the year, I had a dick, and now I don't, so—"

"No," Other Tony countered with a curt shake of his head. "It's 'Steve Edwards.' Or was. He's been dead almost thirty years."

"Yeah, well, you're lying—"

Other Tony laughed. "I'm not. Honest. Look, I don't know what to tell you about David's comment to Captain America at a party where he probably wasn't on his first drink. The guy's a paranoid, reactionary, conservative asshole. Maybe he did too many drugs in the '60s. I don't know. He was a left-winger when my mom knew him. Did a hard one-eighty when Reagan got elected—"

"You look like Steve — like _my_ Steve."

Other Tony shut up and stared at Tony, tilting his head a little in slight confusion.

"I mean vaguely, like, obviously not exactly. Steve's kind of blonde and bluish-eyed and you're clearly not. But you're like a dark-haired version of him."

Other Tony stared at him, flat. "I take after my mom."

"And who does she take after?"

"Both of my grandparents. Yeah, Gramps was kind of a blonde, but my _grandmother_ had dark hair."

Other Tony shot a pointed look at him, and Tony's theory deflated just a little. "Oh."

"Look, I don't know what to tell you about the photographs. My grandfather was a big fan of Captain America — enough to get his hands on his personal photographs, I guess. Is it weird? Yeah, I guess. Never really thought about it much."

"And yet, you just happened to be trolling the internet looking for someone to sell them to at the exact time I was looking to buy them?"

Other Tony shrugged. "Some people would call that 'kismet.'"

"Yeah, well," Tony muttered and picked his cup back up again, "I don't believe in that."

He took a sip of the god-awful concoction then turned to look around the establishment, his gaze settling on the counter near to them, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Other Tony giving him a funny look — kind of a small, almost knowing smile — as he murmured more to himself than anything, "Of course you don't."

Tony took another sip of his drink then turned back to the couple and said, "Look, I'm not trying to be rude here, but I kind of have to get back, so, if you don't mind…"

They both shook their heads, and Tony nodded his understanding then picked up his bag and slapped it on the table, stuffing the box into it before he took a deep breath and braced himself on the table to push himself to his feet.

"It really was so nice to finally meet you," Tracy said.

Tony smiled and nodded then grabbed his bag and his tea and turned to leave, ~~waddling~~ walking over to the door and staring blankly as someone just about to enter the shop stopped and stood back, holding the door open for him to exit. He blinked and said a somewhat confused, "Thank you?" before he stepped back out to the street and went back over to the car.

God, he really hoped he hadn't just spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on fakes. And was it him, or were Other Tony and Tracy kind of weird? Like _really_ weird? Like _what_ the hell was going on there that he wasn't understanding?

He shook his head some and got into the car, tossing his bag onto the passenger seat and closing the door before he started up the car and maneuvered it out of the spot.

It might have been nice to say he thought about it on the drive back uptown, but traffic was a bit heavier, and he spent most of the time cursing out cyclists and cabbies that kept cutting him off or getting into his way, and he was never so thankful to pull into the garage as he was that afternoon, sighing as he put the car into park and leaned his head back against the headrest. Ugh, he was so tired, but he wasn't about to take a nap in the car, and so he steeled himself, shut the car off, and grabbed his bag to make his way back upstairs to the penthouse, leaning against the wall of the elevator as he rode the dozens of floors from the garage to his home in the sky. He pulled the box out with the intention of looking over the photographs again, but instead he yawned and clutched them against his chest…sort of. Really more like his gigantic belly at this point.

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, and as he put one foot out, he heard the unfortunately familiar voice of someone that he was totally going to lock out of the floor one of these days.

"And where were you?"

Tony sighed as he stepped onto the penthouse floor, a gaggle of Avengers crowded around his TV and watching what looked like…an episode of _The Golden Girls_.

Whatever.

He clutched the box with the photographs a little closer and said, "Nothing," to Barton's — was it him, or was it always Barton? — query.

"What's in the box?" Natasha asked and nodded at the thin, faded box in his grasp.

"Hmm? Nothing. Something for Steve."

Natasha gave a knowing smirk, while Barton whistled.

"Not like that!" he snapped and rolled his eyes. "Something—"

He sighed and stepped over to the couch, and he glanced around the room and said, "Where's Steve?"

"On a field trip to get pizza with the counselor and the assassin— _ex_ -assassin," Barton said at Natasha's raised eyebrow. "Cap's misguided attempt to get them to like each other. I don't expect there to be any pizza by the time they get back. One of them will probably throw it in the river and blame the other one for it. Or one of them will stomp on it. Or one of them will try to eat all of it before— Really, anything could happen to it."

"Oh," he said and felt that was sufficient. "OK, you have to promise you won't say anything. I want it to be a surprise." He shot a glare at an innocent-looking Thor. "That means you, too, Goldilocks. I want Steve to actually be surprised by this, not have to pretend that he totally didn't already know what was in the box."

"Wasn't it a severed head?" Barton asked and looked to the rest of the group for confirmation. Thor just looked puzzled, and Natasha shrugged, but Bruce said, "I don't think they actually _said_. I think it was just kind of implied."

Tony rolled his eyes again, his fingers grasping the edge of the box in preparation of opening it. "I could actually show you what's in here, or we could debate twist endings to twenty-year-old movies."

"It's not something gross, is it?" Barton asked.

Tony just stared at him a moment. "This coming from the group of assholes that thought it would be a good idea to buy me a fucking bra that pops open if it thinks I get aroused— And remind me again why we need a fucking _archer_ on the team when we've got the fucking god of thunder?"

"Uh, 'cause I can hit a target better than anyone in this room?"

"Whatever," Tony said and pushed over to the couch as he opened the box. He set the top part on the table, the TV show on the screen paused as the other Avengers leaned in to see what Tony was guarding so preciously.

"Steve's a little…bummed that he doesn't really _have_ anything of his old life — anything personal, anyway," he began to explain as he pulled the photographs out of the box. "He made an offhand mention about some photographs he wished he had, I spent, like, a week scouring the internet, and, well, ask and ye shall receive," he said, carefully handing the first one over to Natasha.

Natasha took it in hand, gingerly holding it by the edges as she opened the folder to reveal the service portrait of Steve's father. She blinked, her eyebrows raising up to her hairline, before she set curious and amazed eyes on Tony.

"This isn't the original—"

Tony shrugged. "Looks pretty authentic to me."

The other three gathered around Natasha, looking over her as they examined the photograph with their own eyes. Thor nodded in approval and said, "Our Steven bears quite a resemblance to his father," while Bruce took the folder from Natasha and looked it over, inspecting it as he turned it over in his grasp.

"If it's a fake, it's a good one," Bruce said. "The card stock on the picture, the way the edges are worn on the folder, even the way it's yellowed — if someone took you for a ride, they definitely put a lot of time and effort into it."

Tony hummed in consideration of Bruce's words and handed over the portrait of Steve's mother. Again, Natasha unfolded it and looked at the photo therein, and Barton tilted his head a little in consideration of it and said, "Kinda looks like his mother, too."

Once again, Bruce took it once the others had finished looking and inspected it, finding once again that, if it was a fake, it was indeed a well-done one.

"I think this one's going to be the test," Tony said and handed the final photo over. Natasha again took it and looked it over, and she flipped it over and read over the script that was written there.

"We know whose handwriting this is?" she asked, holding up the photo to show Tony the pencil markings on the back.

"Well, that's what I mean by the 'test' — if Steve recognizes the handwriting or not. It's not his handwriting. I'm thinking it could be his mother's."

"Oh, so _that's_ what he looks like when he smiles," Barton said as he examined the picture. Evidently he was talking about Barnes. Steve's smile in the photo was more of an unsure grimace, and the team had seen Steve smile on many occasions in the time since they'd been assembled.

Bruce took the photo from Barton, and he inspected it just like he had the other two and again gave his assessment.

"If these are fakes, they're really good fakes. Uh, _where_ did you get them from?"

"A guy from Jersey," he said and tossed the empty box onto the table. "Said his mother had them because her father had them because he was a huge Captain America fan and must have gotten them at a fire sale Howard threw after he broke into Steve's place and took all of his stuff. After he disappeared, I mean— Steve, not Howard."

Natasha set him with a perplexed look, and he shrugged and amended, "I mean, I assume that's what happened anyway."

He took the photos back as Bruce handed them over, and Bruce said, "That's…really amazing, Tony. Crazy, but— How did you come in contact with this guy, again?"

"Trolled the internet a bit," he said and set the pictures back in the box, carefully, as though if he used any more pressure they would turn into dust. "Asked around — not as myself, obviously — got a hit, met up with the guy and his wife at a place down on Bleecker Street. Nice guy. Weirdly, in a superficial way, kind of reminds me of a dark-haired Steve. But with a beard — not one of those gross neck-beards but one of those nicely-groomed ones."

He thought about this a moment then added, "I really think Steve could pull off that kind of beard."

"And you're not concerned that this guy and his wife are going to use this against you in some way?" Bruce asked, not in an accusatory manner but with genuine concern.

He shook his head. "Honestly? No. I think he was happy to get rid of them. I think he thought it was weird that his grandfather even had them in the first place."

"Did he recognize you?" Natasha asked, and Tony grimaced a bit and hedged a little before he said, " _Yeah_. But he clearly stated he wasn't interested in anything but selling me the pictures," he added in an attempt to calm everyone's concern.

"And you believed him?" Barton asked.

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "I did— I do. Besides, if the bastard tries anything, I've got his information. I can easily make his life a living hell."

The others were quiet a moment before Natasha said, "I think Steve'll _really_ appreciate this."

"Yeah?"

She nodded. "Yeah," she said and patted his leg. "You did good, kid."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it," she said with a blasé shrug, but there was a quirk of a smile to her lips, and Tony smiled a little in return and reached out to nudge her a little in solidarity and camaraderie.

" _Sir_ ," JARVIS intoned from on high, " _if you wish to keep the Captain's birthday present a secret, I would make haste to hide it, as he and Sam Wilson and Sergeant Barnes have returned from their trek to bring food back for themselves and the other Avengers_."

"On it!" he said and set the cover over the box then struggled a bit to his feet, Thor eventually helping him, before he took off for his lab. That was probably the safest hiding place for this, right?

He scurried on down and yanked open one of his desk drawers, and he was just about to shove the box in and be done with it when a glint of gold caught his eye. He left the box on the tabletop ahead him then reached in and pulled out the bit of shining metal, holding the band in the palm of his hand as he weighed its significance. He frowned at it a moment then took it between his thumb and forefinger and slipped it onto his left ring finger. Even with the added weight and water retention, it still was too loose, and so he pulled it back off and went to put it back in the drawer for safe keeping, only holding back at the last second when he realized that the desk drawer in his lab probably wasn't the best place to keep sentimental bits of jewelry that he would never be able to wear again unless he got it resized so that it fit his smaller hand.

Instead, he slipped it onto the chain around his neck, watching it slide down to clink against the diamond and sapphire band Steve had bought him a couple months before. He wasn't sure if he'd keep it there or put it away, but it was there for the time being, and he clasped the chain back around his neck then grabbed the box of photographs and stashed them in the drawer.

"J," he called out, "remind me to wrap those sometime before next Friday."

" _Of course, Sir_ ," JARVIS replied. " _If you were going to make your way back to the penthouse, I feel I should warn you that the Captain has brought back with him a large order of Buffalo wings at the request of Agent Barton and Sam Wilson._ "

"Ugh," Tony said and slumped into his chair. "They do remember the scent of those things makes me throw up, right?"

" _The Captain did wish me to alert you to their presence so that you could take the proper precautions_."

He rolled his eyes and drummed his fingers on the table. "Trapped out of my own home. Seriously, remind me again why I put in a common floor that nobody uses?"

" _I do believe you're planning to hold the Captain's birthday celebration on that level_."

"I'm not sure one party once a year counts as adequate usage," he replied as Steve suddenly appeared, a box in his hands and a sheepish smile on his face.

"Sorry," he said as he crossed into the lab and moved over to the desk. "Clint and Sam wanted hot wings or whatever the hell they're called. I know how much the smell bothers you."

Tony shrugged as Steve set the box on the desk, and Tony didn't even wait for him to get himself settled before he pulled it open and eyed over the contents.

"I mean, does it suck being kicked out of my own home? Yeah, kinda," he said and reached in, grabbing a large slice of pie. He pulled it out, the mozzarella stringy where it had melted back together after being cut, and he held the slice high to break the cheese, resorting to using his fingers when yanking on the slice just gave him long, thin strands.

"I'm sorry," Steve said again as he settled into a chair across from him. "How come you're down here anyway?"

Tony shrugged again as Steve reached in and grabbed his own slice, and Tony folded the pizza and took a bite and said, "Dunno," around a mouthful of bread and cheese and sauce. He chewed the bite and thought back for only a moment — yet another memory of an earlier time plaguing him, a wasteful little brat that would only eat the cheese off her slice of pizza.

Tony swallowed and looked at the slice he held in his hand, remembering how she folded it with both her small hands and took one solitary bite before she put it down and began to pull the cheese off because 'Daddy' would eat what she didn't eat. He glanced up at Steve, who was already halfway done with his first slice, and though his stomach gurgled, he suddenly found his appetite gone.

Steve frowned, and he chewed a couple times then said, "What's wrong?"

Tony shook his head. "Nothing. Just…a lot on my mind."

Steve groaned and rolled his eyes. "I really wish you'd forget about that party."

Tony smiled some, thankful for the distraction Steve's complaint had provided him with. "Why? Come on! It's your birthday!"

Steve dropped his crust to the side then reached into the box for another slice. "And I told you. I would have been fine with it just being the two of us having dinner."

"Yeah, that's fine if your birthday's on a shitty day like Tax Day or Flag Day, but yours is on Independence Day. Plus, you're 'Captain America.' I think it might be… _against America_ for you _not_ to celebrate the hell out of your birthday."

Steve raised an eyebrow at him and said, "I…really don't remember when 'Captain America' was born, but Steve Rogers was born on July fourth, and all Steve Rogers needs is a nice, relaxing evening with his best fella and maybe a dinner."

He bit halfway into his slice, and Tony scowled and said, "What's with the third-person all of a sudden? Are you turning into fucking Bob Dole?"

" _Who?_ " Steve asked around a mouthful of food.

Tony rolled his eyes and waved him off. "Never mind," he muttered, not feeling the need to explain the quirks of geriatric former politicians to the youngest geriatric in the world.

Steve shrugged and swallowed his bite before he said, "Seriously, Tony, don't— Whatever you're planning, _don't_ overdo it. Please. I don't need—" He shook his head some. "I don't need anything like that."

He bit off another large chunk of his slice, and Tony watched him a moment then said, "Are you saying this because you really don't want it or you don't think you deserve it?"

"I'm saying I just need you and me and a nice evening in," he replied around the bite, and Tony nodded and parsed the words for what he could make out from them. He hadn't denied that he _wanted_ Tony to make a big fuss over him, which could mean only one thing—

He didn't think he deserved to have anyone make a big fuss over him. He would always be that sickly boy from the Brooklyn tenement, wouldn't he?

"Sure, babe," Tony said and patted his arm, suddenly finding that his appetite had come back.

Steve dropped his arms some and gave Tony a _look_. " _Tony_."

"Look, it's already set up. I've got the cake ordered, the guest list finalized, the decorations ready to fill the room from one corner to the other, I even asked the city to put on a nice fireworks show for you—"

"They do that every year," Steve reminded him and went back to eating his slice of pizza.

"Yeah, but this year, I actually called up the mayor's office and asked them to make it extra nice for you."

Steve paused mid-bite and stared at Tony a moment before he said, "I honestly can't tell if you're kidding or not."

Tony hummed a little and shrugged. "I guess you'll never know, huh?" he mused then bit into his slice of pizza, grinning at him as a glob of grease ran down his chin.

Steve, against what Tony knew was his better judgment, smiled right back.

~*~

When the day of the festivities arrived, Tony woke up bright and early (OK, early for Tony, seeing as his bed was already empty) then woke up his cranky little helper elves and plied them with coffee and French toast so as to make them more amenable to helping him make over the common floor into something that would make Uncle Sam blush — balloons and streamers and those really gaudy decorations that sparkled way too damned much. There was assorted grumbling to be had that ended quite quickly as they stuffed themselves with Tony's version of Jarvis's French toast, and after cleaning up, Tony was able to get most of them to follow him down to the common room to set about making the room into a tacky love song to America (and Steve).

The birthday boy himself wandered in at one point after his run, sweaty, his shirt clinging to him in all the right places, and he eyed up the horror show, a grimace on his face as he said, "Tony, you really didn't have to go to all this."

Tony, lazing on the couch as he directed Barnes where to pin a gathering of red, white, and blue streamers, shrugged and said, "You know, it's not just _your_ birthday we're celebrating. It's our nation's birthday. Are you really that vain, Steven? Do you really think that song is about you?"

"What?"

"Now you're quoting Carly Simon songs?" Wilson asked as he filled another balloon with helium. Steve watched him do this and sighed a little.

"Tony," he said, turning back to him, "this is—"

"Not a hassle or a problem whatsoever," he finished before Steve could suck the fun out of it. "It's one day, Steve! Could you just try to enjoy it? Look!"

He pointed over to an area where a red hat with a blue stars-and-stripes band hung from the ceiling.

"We've even got a piñata."

Steve stared at it a moment before shook his head. "Whatever," he murmured before he turned and left to take a shower. Tony would have followed, but he was too comfortable where he was, and besides, someone had to run the show.

He thought it might be difficult to get Steve to show up later that afternoon when the festivities were slated to begin, but there he was in a tight pair of jeans and an even tighter t-shirt, smiling and thanking all the attendees for their well-wishes as he ambled through the crowd. He ducked out of the way of a silver star that was hanging just a little too low from the ceiling and pushed his way over to Tony, folding his arms as he looked down at him and said, "Happy?"

"Hmm?" Tony said, doing a quick scan of the perimeter to make sure everyone was satisfied with their food and drinks. "Always," he said, unthinking, and turned to look up at Steve.

He smiled at him, and Steve exhaled a breath and said, "You really didn't have to go to all this trouble, you know."

"No trouble at all," Tony said and patted Steve's arm then sucked in a breath as he watched Thor try to take a swing at the piñata with Mjolnir. "Yeah, OK, that's not happening," he said and pulled away from Steve to go tell Thor if he put a hole in his wall or his window, he was off the team.

Still, overall, it actually went quite well. Not _too_ much got broken, and Darcy was too busy trying to chug wine coolers on a dare to bother Tony with questions about orgasms or masturbation, and overall people seemed to have a good time — even Steve, who looked like he secretly was appreciating the hell out of the attention and the 'Happy Birthday!'s that kept being thrown his way. He was a good sport about the presents, most of which seemed to be gag gifts centering on him being both 'Captain America' and having his birthday on Independence Day. And as for the cake—

"Oh, dear _god_ , Tony!" was pretty much all he said as Barnes wheeled the concoction out from the kitchen, wincing at the flicker of sparklers stuck with methodical precision (he'd allowed DUM-E to help him) along the top and sides of the cake, which was done in a mockup of Steve's shield.

There were some candles mixed in as well — Tony had wanted to go with ninety-six, which was Steve's real age, but he couldn't very well fit ninety-six candles _and_ the sparklers on the cake (and he was determined to get those bastards on the cake), and so he'd just gone with twenty-nine, which was, as best Tony could figure, the amount of lived experience Steve actually had (which…yeah, he was _not_ thinking about then or ever), and then made Barnes and Wilson help him light the candles and then the sparklers so they would all burn relatively evenly before going out or being blown out.

With the sparking cake in front of him after the customary chorus of 'Happy Birthday to You,' Steve just laughed and shook his head, and Tony pointed to it and said, "Seriously, can you get any more American than that?"

"I don't know," Steve said and gave Tony a sideways glance. "I'm pretty sure this is something only you could come up with."

"Like it?"

"You're never going to be able to top this," Steve said and winced a little as a couple of sparks hit him.

"Hmm…that sounds like a challenge, old man."

"OK," Wilson said as he held his phone up to capture the event. "You _do_ realize there are other people in the room here, right? Married people flirting is, like, the grossest kind of flirting."

"I still say all you losers are jealous," Tony said as Steve leaned closer to the cake, seeming to feel it safe now that most of the sparklers had burned down to the end. He went to fold his arms as he waited for Steve to make his wish and blow out the candles, but as he made to do so, Steve reached out and snagged a hold of his hand, and he squeezed it tight as he took a breath, seemingly made his wish, and blew out all the candles in one fell swoop.

"Finally," Natasha muttered as she pushed forward with a knife and a stack of plates. "Not sure there's anything left with all the heat that was on that cake."

As she went about pulling out the sparklers — instructing Barnes and Wilson to help her while the other party-goers went back to mingling and chatting — Tony pushed close into Steve and said, "So, what did you wish for?"

Steve hummed a little but shook his head. "Nope. Can't tell you. Won't come true."

"Oh, come on!" Tony said with a scoff. "That doesn't mean anything! What did you wish for?"

Still, Steve shook his head and said, "Nope. Can't tell you."

This time, Tony hummed and said, "Somehow, I'm thinking it's a little more selfish than the noble 'peace on earth, good will toward men.'"

Steve just shrugged, smiling a little, not committing to an answer either way as he found the first slice of rather warm and slightly melted birthday cake shoved at him.

Tony frowned at what he saw on the plate and said, "Hey! I got ice cream to go with this! Where the hell is the ice cream?"

Steve looked up from where he was about to stab his fork into the cake to break off his first bite. "Butter pecan?" he asked, his voice going up into a hopeful little lilt.

"Of course," Tony said with a proud nod of the head.

The party began to disperse once the fireworks were all said and done — a _good_ show, Tony supposed, but not as nice as he might have liked (or been able to pay for himself) — and Natasha insisted she and the others could clean up if he and Steve wanted to retire for the night. Steve tried to be noble about it and stay behind to clean up, but Tony just shoved at his chest to push him over toward the elevator and said, "Steven, they are volunteering to clean up. Let them earn their keep."

"Pretty sure I earn my keep by kicking ass," Wilson muttered as he shoved disposable cups into a garbage bag.

"Practicing your 'smooth moves' in front of the mirror doesn't count as 'kicking ass,'" Barnes replied as he worked at puling the streamers down from the ceiling.

Tony was able to shove Steve onto the elevator just as they began to argue about sucking the helium out of the balloons, and when the doors closed and the car was on the ascent, Tony looked up at him and said, "See? It wasn't so bad, was it?"

"No," Steve said with a yawn and a shake of the head. He smiled a little at Tony and said, "I did notice that I didn't get anything from you."

"I am literally gestating your child in my uterus, babe. Isn't that a good enough present for you?"

"Of course," Steve replied and brushed his lips over his temple just as the car arrived at the penthouse, announcing its arrival with a 'ding.' The door slid open, and Steve took Tony's hand to lead him off, and he made to go over to the couch, but Tony tugged on his hand and said, "Come here."

"Huh?" Steve asked but followed as Tony led him over to the stairs and then up to the second floor. He followed Tony into the bedroom, and then Tony let go of his hand to pick up the expertly-wrapped box that sat in the middle of the bed. OK, maybe not 'expertly,' but he'd watched a couple YouTube videos, and he thought it wasn't half-bad for what was really his first stab at it.

(All right, and DUM-E had helped, which maybe accounted for the kind of scraggly bow.)

"I, uh, didn't want to give this to you downstairs. Especially now that I see we're friends with a bunch of assholes that think speedos with a shield right over the crotch are an appropriate birthday gift."

Steve snorted a laugh as he took the box from Tony. "Actually, I was thinking of wearing them the next time I go swimming."

"Not in public, you're not," Tony muttered then stood back some and bit his lip as Steve tore the paper off the box and cracked it open. He pushed away the tissue paper and frowned, clearly assuming the box contained something very different.

Slowly, Steve removed the photos from the box, grasping them in one hand and setting the box to the side with the other. A serious frown covering his face, he stared down at the photos, looking through them one-by-one. Tony bit his lip some more as he tried to decipher what the looks on Steve's face meant, and he even wrung his hands together somewhat when Steve was going over his fifth look-through of the photos, that serious frown never flickering for a moment.

"So?"

Tony watched as Steve stared down at the objects in his hand like he couldn't fathom what he was seeing. He didn't linger too much on the portrait of his father — understandably; he'd never known the man — and the photo of himself and Bucky at what looked like Steve's high school graduation seemed to make him just the slightest bit uncomfortable, but he spent an awful long time staring at the portrait of his mother. Tony started to think that he'd been had and these weren't even Steve's old photos at all, and he went to apologize for even attempting to pass off clear forgeries as the real thing when Steve turned to him, eyes wet and awe written over his face.

"Where did you get these?"

"Uh…" he said, trying to buy himself just a little bit of time. Was Steve mad? Sad? Angry? Disappointed?

Had he done _right?_

"Jersey— Guy out in Jersey. His mother had them 'cause her father had them or something. Didn't seem to know how his grandfather had gotten his hands on them. I'm going to assume Howard had a fire sale after you…disappeared."

Steve just nodded, his gaze turning back to the photos in his hands.

"Uh…" Tony said again after the silence had gone on for too long. "They OK?"

Steve was still a moment, staring at the photos, before he nodded, and Tony watched his Adam's apple bob up and down as he swallowed.

"Yeah," he said, the word slightly gravelly, "yeah, they're—" He cleared his throat. "I just—" He turned to Tony, and Tony saw the tears had already wet his eyelashes. "How did you even find these?"

Tony shrugged. "You wanted 'em. I found 'em. Simple as that. Nothing's too good for my baby."

Steve nodded again and turned back to the photos.

"Are they real?" Tony asked, still not sure how to take Steve's reaction. "I mean are they the Real McCoy?"

"Hmm? What? Yeah, uh—"

Steve pulled the one of him and Barnes to the forefront, and he flipped it over to look at what was on the back. He startled a bit before he smiled, a little fondly and a little sadly.

"That's Ma's handwriting," he said then turned to look at Tony. His eyes had gone a little red in addition to being watery, stubborn droplets clinging to his long eyelashes, and he choked out a laugh as he looked at Tony and said, "You really— You found these for me?"

Tony shrugged. "Well, it's not like it was _hard_ …"

Which was…well, that didn't meant it had been _easy_ , either, but it was worth it. Steve was so worth it.

But Steve shook his head a little, pursing his lips and swallowing like he was trying to get hold of his emotions. The pictures in his grasp, he moved over to Tony and, without a word, folded him into his arms, tight, possessive, loving — like even with these pictures in-hand, Tony was still his most prized possession in the world.

"Uh, so…you like 'em? They're OK?" Tony asked as he slid his arms around Steve's waist. Not as easy to do as it had once been — stupid , gigantic stomach was in the way — but he was still able to get a good hold on Steve, and Steve was still able to hold him in his arms and brush his lips over the top of his head and murmur a soft and sincere, " _Thank you_ ," to him.

"Yeah, hey, don't mention it."

"No," Steve said, shaking his head some, nose brushing against his hair. "No, it— Don't act like it was 'nothing.' It wasn't 'nothing.' It was— This is amazing, Tony. This is— _Thank you_. Thank you so much for this. It— You have no idea what it means to me."

"I could probably hazard a guess."

"Yeah, but—" Steve began, rubbing his free hand over Tony's back and tightening his arms if that was at all possible, "—this is amazing. This is— This means so much to me, and I don't know how you did it, but… _thank you_. Thank you so much, Tony. I—"

He didn't finish what he was going to say. He just held Tony close as could be and bowed his head, burying his face in Tony's neck and breathing in the scent that was there. Tony just patted his back and said, "There you go, big guy. I won't tell anyone, I promise."

He expected a laugh and something teasing. He expected a joke. What he didn't expect was a warm wetness to brush against his neck as Steve seemingly blinked away some tears — of happiness, of remorse, he couldn't say — and he took a deep breath and swallowed to keep his own emotions in check because he was starting to do that thing where he'd cry at the drop of a fucking hat, and seeing Steve cry was a surefire way of getting his own waterworks going.

So he reached up and put a gentle hand over the back of Steve's head and brushed light fingertips over the short, soft hairs there and said, "We can put them out on display, if you'd like. Or we can keep them locked up tight somewhere that no one can get them. Totally up to you."

He nodded against Tony's shoulder and once again whispered a sincere and heartfelt, " _Thank you_."

Steve chose to frame them and put them on display right beside a photo of him and Tony taken right after they'd gotten engaged and a group shot of the Avengers taken right after some minor skirmish they'd gotten tangled in, two disparate parts of his life finally coming together as one.


End file.
